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~rj THE 



PERIODIC LAW. - 



BY 

% 

REV. GEO. A. LEAKIN, A. M., 

BALTIMORE, 



"There is a confident expectation in the minds of men of the re- 
appearance in higher spheres of the same laws and relations which 
they have recognised in the lower ; and thus that which is like is 
also likely or probable. Butler's Analogy is just the unfolding (as 
he himself declares at the beginning) in one particular line of thought 
that the like is also the likely."— Trench on the Parables. 



POTT & AMERY, PUBLISHERS, 
Nos. 5 & 13 Cooper Union. 

1868. 



HFl72,S 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 186S, 

BY GEO. A. LEAKIX, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court in the District of Maryland . 



John W. Amerman, Printer, 47 Cedar-street, N. Y. 



PEEFAOE 



The author of this treatise, from many years 
of pastoral experience, has had opportunities of 
investigating the phases of mental emotions, and 
as his observations extended, he was led to sus- 
pect the same law of Periodicity as obtains in the 
world of nature. While Chaplain of a Hospital, 
he sought the aid of skillful Surgeons, whose 
testimony corroborated his own previously ex- 
pressed views ; and he now submits his conclu- 
sions to the intelligent reader, and shall be glad 
to receive any similar investigations in a field 
comparatively unexplored. The value of this 
Periodic law will be apparent to the Physician, 
the Agriculturist, the Underwriter, the Teacher, 
the Minister, and to all interested in mental and 
moral progress ; and though he is unable to state 
all the practical bearings of this principle, he yet 
feels at liberty to suggest a realm of Thought 
more lasting than the Incas. 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER I. 



The Periodic Law universal — Natural Objects typical of 
mental and moral Laws — Man the true Chronometer — 
Does Chance exist? — Chance injurious to mental and 
moral Improvement — First Truths always novel. 

CHAPTER II. 

The AYeather's caprice — Storm-signals — Locomotive Com- 
munications — Inundations — Mlometers — Sir Samuel 
Baker's discovery — Important use of Telegraphs — Inter- 
nal Oscillations. 

CHAPTER III. 

Periodic Harvest failures in France — United States — East 
Indies — Insurance against Accidents — Failure of Crops 
— The Science of Insurance — The Law of Accidents — The 
Moral of Insurance. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Science of Publication — Medical Science — Types of 
Disease — Wandering thoughts the Comets of the Mind. 

CHAPTER V. 

Disease and Insanity — Isolation remedial — Mutineers of 
the " Bounty" — Circulation of Thought — Popular Com- 
motions. 



b CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Education — Rise and Decadence of Schools — Cycle with 
Teacher and Scholar — Religious Depressions and Excite- 
ments — The Journey of a Day the picture of Human 
Life — The Law of Coincidence. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Science and Mirth — Pre-existence — Post-existence — Dreams 
— Cycles in Writing — Public Speaking — Conversation 
and Art. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Rhythm in Music — The Septennial periods of Man's life — 
Dr. Mahan on Scriptural numbers — Sacred and Profane 
History — The progress of Empire — Historical repetitions 
— Social Cycles. 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Cycle of Retribution — Is Periodicity Fatalistic ?- 
" There is a tide " in mental and moral emotions — Cui 
Bono ? — The Cycle of Science. 

CHAPTER X. 

Thought Indestructible — "The River of Time"— Mental 
"Sympathy — Moral Influence — Heavenly Order. 

APPENDIX. 

Natural and Revealed Religion — Cicada Septendecim — 
Spiritual Insight — Spiritual Laws — Love, Hope and Pa- 
tience — Scriptural Coincidences — De Tocqueville's De- 
mocracy — Personal Repetitions — Legenda of St. Valen- 
tine — Simultaneousness — Emotions. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE PERIODIC LAW. 

Ijst writing on this subject I am unable to 
present any recognised text-book as my au- 
thority, for after years of investigation I have 
found no special treatise on Periodicity. I 
have, however, discovered out-cropping hints 
and suggestions in Yico, Bishop Butler, Ar- 
thur Butler, Isaac Taylor, McCosh, Robertson 
Spencer, D'Israeli, Esquirol, Gillie, ITallam, 
Guizot, Goethe, Neander, Whewell, Bulwer, 
Holmes and Emerson. But, every thoughtful 
person has some knowledge of this law, which, 
like the angel's visit, brings a message, and 
then disappears. Says an eminent physician, 
" The subject of the Periodic Law revives the 
impressions which I have received from time 
to time of the instrumentality of that law in 
the seasons ; the periodical and destructive 
visitations of the elements ; epidemics of dis- 
ease, mental, moral and financial." The Phy- 
sician discovers " a strange and inexplicable 
Periodicity in the physiological and patholo- 



8 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

gical manifestations." The President of a law 
school writes, that though unable to present 
any authoritative treatise, he has yet traced 
this law in the study of history, and asks: 
" Does not Shakspeare express the same idea, 
6 There is a tide in the affairs of men?' " But, 
who would think of finding this scientific prin- 
ciple in a President's message ? thus : " The 
law of demand and supply is as unerring 
that which regulates the tides of the ocean 
and indeed, currency, like the tides, has it 
ebbs and flows throughout the commerce 
world." 

It is remarkable, that while such advances 
are made in physical science, while geographers 
explore Africa, so little is known of our own 
Thought kingdom. Science tames the electric 
spark ; astronomers predict the returning 
comet ; but who ventures to determine the laws 
of Thought ? and yet the field is within us. 

NATURAL OBJECTS TYPICAL. 

Keflecting minds employ physical laws as 
ladders for higher truths. Each slighted object, 
like the prophet in the wilderness, points up- 
wards ; and should any plant or animal seem 
a failure, that failure is in the observer. Watch ■ 
it, as Hugh Miller did the rock, and it con- 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 9 

fesses an undeviating law. At first the earth 
was chaotic, but at each ascent, through differ- 
ent strata, design is more clear. Shall this 
order cease when we ascend from the natural 
to the spiritual ? 

MAN THE TRUE CHRONOMETER. 

The more complicated the functions the 
more valuable the result. Observe the Polyp, 
and the increase of organs, until man, the 
highest, predominates. The vegetable and 
animal world unconsciously show the change 
of seasons, but man is the time-keeper: He 
first constructs the rude clepsydra, and then 
advances to the precise chronometer, and may 
construct an instrument still more delicate. 
Shall man impose the Periodic Law on the im- 
passive metal, and he himself be exempt from 
its operation ? The chronometer is typical of 
that Periodicity, which we know not now, but 
shall, through investigation, know hereafter. 

DOES CHANCE EXIST ? 

Men have deified chance, and, like the 
gamester, risked all on her throw ; but science 
has gradually substituted law for caprice, and 
ascertained cycles of loss and gain in hazard- 
ous games. Pestilence has lost its virulence. 



10 THE PEKIODIC LAW. 

In agriculture, finance, war and storms, and 
in great social questions, comparative certainty 
has been attained. But, in the realm of mind, ' 
chance seems impregnable. And shall this 
continue ? There is no chance in the sparrow's 
fall, or in the wandering comet, and we antici- 
pate a firmament of mind more beauteous 
than the starry splendor. 

"The few who have wisdom and firmness 
to prosecute through life the great work of 
self-improvement will value hints of this kind, 
which, indeed, are disregarded only because 
we live from day to day by chance, and forget 
that life is as much an art, governed by its 
own laws, as the most complicated profession 
by which that life is maintained." 

IS THE NOVELTY OF TRUTH OBJECTIONABLE ? 

Does the slow progress or the obscurity of 
this law discourage us ? Let past discoveries 
reply. Let the wild winds and storms answer. 
Science knows not the weather law ; but science 
declares : " I shall see it, but not now ; I shall 
behold it, but not nigh." What if we shall 
anticipate mental disturbance as readily as the 
coming storm, and fortify a day of weakness 
by special vigilance ? 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 11 



CHAPTER II. 

113 



THE WEATHER^ CAPRICE. 



The uncertainty of the weather, though 
proverbial, is only apparent. Compare each 
]day, week, month, season, with previous cor- 
respondents, and you will not call the weather 
capricious. The average temperature, the 
'quantity of rain and snow, the fine and wet 
(days, the gales of wind and thunder storms 
lare almost exactly the same every year. There 
is the extreme cold of early January; the 
January thaw; the hot days at the end of 
February ; the blustering winds of March ; 
the light showers of April; the warm weather 
|near the end of April ; the cold first of May, 
ifollowed by the long northeast storm, and then 
beautiful weather ; the chilly first or second 
!day of June; the intensely hot June days; 
! the chilly beginning of July, and so on through 
the year. We can almost say that every 
marked circumstance of the weather occurs 
every year about the same time, and several 
successive Sundays are precisely alike. " He 



12 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

measures the drops of rain as the dust of the 
balance, and each year has its allotted ration." 

STOKM SIGNALS. 

" The establishment of storm signals in this 
country seems now to be certain. When a storm 
has commenced in a certain direction, the first 
telegraph station notifies all the other stations 
hundreds of miles in advance. Three guns are 
fired at each county seat announcing the storm. 
The interval between the first and second in- 
dicates the Hnd of storm. That between the 
second and third the direction. An interval 
between a third and fourth the distance ; thus 
allowing a mile to a second, an interval of two 
minutes shows a distance of 120 miles, and 
then on our coasts these signals are repeated 
to notify the homeward bound vessels." Had 
such a system existed in America, our newly- 
acquired island might have experienced less dis- 
aster and our lost national vessels been spared. 
Had this system been continued by the Eng- 
lish Admiralty, no less than four vessels, with 
many lives, might have escaped. [On the au- 
thority of General Sabine, the People's Maga- 
zine announces the resumption of the system.] 
Storm signals, like other improvements, sug- 
gest the inquiry, " Cannot the shriek of the 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 13 

locomotive be more utilized ?" At present the 
whistle says, " Stop ; Start ;" but there might 
be at least as much information given as by 
our fire alarms, and locomotives have " some 
words" without collisions. 

INUNDATIONS. 

Science defines the Mississippi River as run- 
ning south to the Gulf, and then returning to 
j its sources in a cycle of vapor — " The waters 
j above the waters." Now, if by certain though 
i partially discovered laws we may predict the 
| coming storm, why not with equal facility an- 
j ticipate a flood ? Mitchell says that the bends 
| of the Mississippi are struck with the precision 
I of a compass, and boatmen estimate their pro- 
: gress not by miles but by bends. The swamp 
!' land of the Sacramento valley is said to over- 
flow periodically, and I have reason to believe 
that the Susquehanna and Ohio have vast floods 
every eighteen or nineteen years. In the val- 
ley of Egypt, Nilometers recorded the river 
law for ages ; but with us the science of fluvi- ' 
ology has been overlooked, and yet its connec- 
tion with meteorology is such that any fact 
discovered in the one must elucidate the other. 
" Sir Samuel Baker, during his four years 
travel in Africa, has solved two great prob- 



14 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

lems : The discovery of the source of the Nile ' 
and the cause of its annual inundation. A de- 
ficient overflow at once produces famine. The 
great famine in Joseph's time, which lasted 
seven years, was doubtless caused by a seven 
years' failure of the inundation ; an occur- 
rence to which there is an exact parallel in 
historical times. The inundation is caused by 
the addition to the constant stream of the 
periodical rains which fall upon the hill coun- 
try of Abyssinia." 

In building a bridge over the Great Miami 
River, time, labor and expense were greatly 
saved by telegraphic communications through 
the entire Miami basin, thus anticipating floods 
hours before they reached the bridge. 

Might not this application of science be em- 
ployed on every large river, thereby saving vast 
quantities of lumber and other valuables an- 
nually swept away ? 

Recently the water from Ottawa Lake, in 
Monroe County, Michigan, entirely disap- 
peared. The Coldwater Gazette says : " The 
lake, or rather its bed or graveyard, presents a 
novel scene ; some say the water will soon re- 
turn by the same source of its departure — Lake 
Erie. About seven years ago Ottawa Lake 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 15 

departed in the same way, and old residents 
say that this is a periodical recurrence." 

INTERNAL OSCILLATIONS. 

There is reason to believe that internal dis- 
turbances of the earth are as periodic as ex- 
ternal phenomena. In deep mining, from the 
hours of twelve at night until eight in the 
morning, water falls where none is seen during 
the day. The volume in the wheel is percep- 
tibly increased, the atmosphere is charged with 
gases which prevent the lights burning, and 
small particles of earth and rock, as in the 
Chicago tunnel, are observed to fall from the 
tops of the drives. Whether this phenomenon 
is attributable to the -diurnal motion of the 
earth or other causes, is worthy of consideration. 

Similar to this is the disturbance of the At- 
lantic telegraph, whose electric pulse beats 
slowly or rapidly in certain recurring hours ; 
and physicians remark that births and deaths 
are more frequent by night than by day. 



16 THE PERIODIC LAW. 



CHAPTEE III. 

PERIODIC HARVEST FAILURES. 

While in a military hospital I had oppor- 
tunities of investigating the phases of mental 
emotions, and I was led to suspect the Univer- 
sality of the Periodic Law. This principle, de- 
duced from a number of facts, threw increased 
light on the facts themselves, just as the as- 
cending dew, condensed on the mountains, 
trickles down and clarifies the very lake whence 
it emanated, (a cycle for ages unknown,) or as 
the law of gravitation applied to the planets 
revealed a more exact system of longitudes, 
thus giving increased security to commerce. 
But that which particularly arrested my at- 
tention was a list in the Paris Constitutionelle 
of the periods of scarcity in France during 
three centuries, deducing thereby a septennial 
failure, and concluding thus : " It is plainly 
owing to some law of nature yet undiscovered 
that these unfruitful seasons recur at compa- 
ratively regular periods." This undiscovered 
law was the very one then engaging my inves- 






THE PERIODIC LAW. 17 

tigations, and I soon found similar facts, viz. : 
Four droughts in Montgomery County, Mary- 
land, at intervals of sixteen years ; in parts of 
Illinois a similar recurrence in seven years ; 
in Delaware a change in the peach harvest in 
twenty years, and in Texas a general expecta- 
tion of abundance among the old settlers every 
twenty years. 

A farmer in the San Joaquin Valley writes 
to the Farmers' Club of New- York, " that in 
that region there are periodical seasons of 
1 drought, not of months but of years ;" and his 
\ experience of California goes to show that the 
( seasons of fertility and sterility come by periods 
l of years. 

Bayard Taylor thus, writes : " The richer 
I bottom lands of Thuringia have been cultivated 
| with the interruptions of war for at least 
I two thousand years ; until recently, however, 
' the system of farming was very primitive : 
shallow ploughing would soon have exhausted 
the land but for constant and generous ma- 
nuring, and the relief which comes from rota- 
tion of crops. Some of the farmers reckon 
five and some seven years. In the latter case, 
the land lying one year fallow, as the proper 
cycle." 
I further understood that there was a sep* 



18 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

tennial failure in the East India cotton crop, 
and that our own Sea Island cotton was 
septennially devastated by the caterpillar, a 
fact paralleled by our seventeen year locusts. 
I might further suggest that the septennial 
fallow of the Jewish law may have been this 
very periodicity, written ages previously on 
the ground itself. The Department of Agri- 
culture at Washington published these facts, 
calling the attention of our American farmers 
to seasons remarkable for droughts or rain, 
scanty or abundant harvests, and adding, that 
if such law be ascertained, " a valuable saving 
of time, labor and crops would result to the 
farmers and nation." 

I have been surprised that in agricultural 
publications there is so little regard to general 
principles. Lord Bacon gathered all his agri- 
cultural books and burned them, because they 
contained only the empirical. 

Closely allied with this law is the beauteous 
system of compensation, as, when a failure in 
Europe is marked by abundance here ; or, 
" while the weather was so unfavorable for 
corn planting, it was highly favorable for 
wheat. During those wet, cold weeks, the 
wheat plant grew very slowly, and in pro- 
tecting itself, it sent out new shoots, which 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 19 

now are rising to sight, and adding to a stand 
i which, by reason of the winter snows, was 

already good." Thus a cold climate, giving a 

slow growth and creating a self-protection, 
| must, in a series of years, yield more wealth 

than a rapidly maturing climate. Thus the 

sower still goes out to sow. 

INSURANCE. 

Man is designed to be his brother's keeper, 
and the system of insurance against fire is 
based on annually recurring destruction — the 
application of the higher idea. While the 
uniformity of fires is well known, conflagra- 
tions wide-spread, startling and apparently 
abnormal, are subject to the same law. A 
century ago an English clergyman extended 
insurance from property to life, and from the 
apparent chaos of mortality deduced a law so 
reliable, that millions repose under its shelter ; 
and more recently another advance includes 
all accidents, and doubtless should wars con- 
tinue, a small reservation from the soldier's 
pay would furnish an income in case of wounds 
or death more beneficial than the precarious 
bounty. But is this principle exhausted ? A 
time is near when the harvests of grain and 



20 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

crops of fruit shall be insured to the farmer and 
planter against all accidents of the weather. 

I have since been informed that there are 
such societies in England ; and a bill before 
Congress proposes that insurance be effected 
on naval officers, by such a deduction of salary 
as mentioned above, and which, in behalf of 
soldiers, I ventured to recommend to the Sec- 
retary of War in 1865. 

I was told by an officer of an extensive rail- 
road, that accidents were singularly concur- 
rent. For a long time there is an exemption, 
and then disasters accumulate in a week ; and 
what is more singular, they run into types — 
collisions, explosions, bridges — precisely as the 
prevailing epidemics of disease or crime, 
On the British roads, during four years, th 
number of killed was respectively 216, 184, 
222, 221. With such uniformity in accidents, 
and even in earthquakes, (according to M. 
Alexis Perry,) is it wonderful that insurance 
against accidents has become popular ? And 
if law comprehends such abnormal events, 
what can escape its control ? and can the in- 
surance principle stop until it merges in that 
great moral association which protects all ful- 
filling its conditions ? 



e 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 21 

I 

THE SCIENCE OF INSURANCE. 

The process of discovery is nearly the same 
! in every department of nature. The perturba- 
tion of one planet led Le Verrier to suspect 
(another, and consequent investigations dis- 
closed the locality of the mysterious stranger. 
Thus the best actuaries account for clustering 
accidents and conflagrations by some unknown 
law, which the New-York State Superinten- 
dent traces in fires the most devastating ; and 
• the most advanced educators attribute the un- 
1 accountable vivacity and depression of classes 
to some undeveloped Periodicity — a law, which 
I though not absolutely new, becomes relatively 
I so by scientific advances. 

Before investigation, nothing seemed more 
abnormal than disasters by sea and railway ; 
and yet as the amount of rain in any given 
year is almost the . same with the general 
average, so the amount of marine losses is 
equally uniform, and thus with conflagrations 
apparently abnormal. Says the Insurance 
Monitor, " The extensive fires occurring in 
T,roy and Quebec, have sternly impressed on 
us the fact that epidemic periods have not 
passed away, but are as likely to occur in the 
future as in the past, and suggest whether 



22 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

there be not some law governing and control- 
ling, not only these disastrous recurrences, but 
also the great average of losses in ordinary 
business." These facts are indications of that 
new and beautiful law ; and just as the ex- 
plorer found a continent by the premonitions 
of strange birds and waifs of unknown wood, 
so by the collection of these facts, life's rugged 
ocean becomes a highway. 

M. Quetelet declares, "that in every thing 
which concerns crime, the same numbers occur 
with a constancy that cannot be mistaken ; 
and this even with those crimes which seem 
quite independent of human foresight, as mur- 
ders, which are generally committed after 
quarrels apparently casual. Nevertheless, we 
know from experience, that there is the same 
number of murders annually, and that the 
very instruments employed are in the same 
proportion." Later inquiries develop the ex- 
traordinary fact, that the recurrence of crime 
can be more clearly predicted than the physi- 
cal laws of disease and destruction of our 
bodies. Thus the number accused in France, 
from 1826 to 1844, was by a singular coinci- 
dence about equal to the male deaths that took 
place in Paris during the same period ; only, 
the fluctuations in crime were smaller than 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 23 

i .those of mortality, and each separate offence 
: obeyed the same law of periodic repetition. 

THE LAW OF ACCIDENTS. 

" Accident Insurance, whether applied to 
I loss of life or personal injury, rests on the 
same basis as Life Insurance. It is uncertain 
j jto the individual, but certain as to the mass. 
Nothing could be more uncertain than the 
^selection of a single death by drowning within 
jtwelve months ; and yet it is certain that in 
|France 3,700 persons will from that cause and 
in that time lose their lives. 

" The statistics of England, France, Ger- 
many and the United States prove, that to 
'every person accidentally killed, 70 receive 
I disabilities averaging 20 days. Such observa- 
tions determine the rates covering the hazard ; 
for, as $650 insured as compensation for per- 
sonal injury, is to $5,000 insured against acci- 
dental death, so these sums are to the pre- 
miums charged, assuming that the losses by 
accidental death and personal injury will be 
! equal. Witness the operation of these laws in 
i the Travelers : 

: 1867. Jan. 1. Losses from personal injury, $201,785 12 

" " " " accidental death, 195,990 00 

1 1868. " " " " personal injury, 372,882 32 

" " " " accidental death, 371,225 00 



24 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

. Could any law be more clearly proven by 
results ? Doubtless, a more complete classifi- 
cation of various risks will discover " truths of 
immense social and political importance." 

THE MORAL OF INSURANCE. 

Insurance is most immediately connected 
with this life, but, like the bow of promise, it 
embraces and illustrates the life immortal. 
The preparation for a limited future intensifies 
and brings nearer the eternal. Show us a 
land where revelation is not received and there 
insurance is unknown, and wherever a future 
life is most realized, there this principle most 
permeates the community. 

The kingdom of God is a universal assur- 
ance, and if its members perform the condi- 
tions they shall be compensated. Nor is this 
merely the promise of the future ; it is the 
realization of the present. Behold the Pente- 
costal establishment of this Society. The 
abundance of the rich compensated the poor — 
no man lacked ; and St. Paul compares the 
Church to the " whole body, which fitly joined 
together and compacted by that which every 
■joint supplieth, according to the effectual 
working in the measure of every part, maketh 
increase of the body to the edifying of itself in 



THE PEEIODIC LAW. 25 

J love." Every discovery of man has been long 
I anticipated by God. The spider may enter a 
'f -caveat against the assumed invention of the 
balloon— the life-preserving projectile and the 
finest silk loom. The improvement in lenses 
icame from the study of the human eye; the 
I foundation of the Eddystone light-house origi- 
i nated from the root of a tree ; the heating pro- 
cess by iron conduits is the Gulf Stream in 
I miniature ; photography approximates the 
i image on the retina, and so the discovery of 
' Life Insurance was the faint reflection of God's 
great insurance law. Since then it has ad- 
vanced from fire to life, from life to accidents, 
and who can tell its limitation ? Insurance is 
an advance from the material to the moral, or 
rather changes the material into the moral, 
and each new advance more fully assures 
those who seek first God's kingdom and His 
righteousness. 

The word Insure is not found in the New 
Testament, but the idea abounds. " God will 
judge the world by Christ Jesus, wherefore he 
hath given assurance unto all men in that he 
liath raised him from the dead." Assurance, 
in the Greek, signifies faith, from which we 
infer that faith means not merely trust in a 
personal Saviour, but the assurance of a king- 

3 



26 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

dom ; and as the day star ushers in the sun 
rays, so does .insurance declare His kingdom in 
our very midst. 

Conformably with these truths are the words 
of Dean Trench : " The earthly relationship 
is but a lower form of the heavenly, on which 
it rests, and of which it is the utterance." The 
Parables called attention to spiritual facts 
which underlie all processes of nature, all in- 
stitutions of society, and which, though un- 
seen, are the ground and support of these 
processes and institutions. 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 27 



CHAPTER IY. 

THE SCIENCE OF PUBLICATION. 

The universality of this law suggests a new 
subject, viz. : the Science of Publication. 

From feeble beginnings the Periodic issues 
;of the Press have reached an importance de- 
manding the recognition of science. The 
press has become a department of government, 
and investigation into this, as in other fields, 
'will discover a regular ebb and flow in sub- 
scriptions and advertisements. The intelli- 
Igent Editor will appreciate the substitution of 
certain law for the caprice of chance. 

MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

A distinguished physician, in the British 
and Foreign Medical Review, thus writes : 
I " Experience shows that the physician and his 
I remedy are useful only when they act in ac- 
cordance with the laws of the constitution and 
! the intentions of nature ; hence, in chronic, 
| and even in acute diseases, the most effective 
! part of the treatment is generally the hygienic — 



28 • THE PERIODIC LAW. 

placing the organs under the most favorable 
circumstances for the adequate exercise of their 
respective functions. There are forms of dis- 
ease in which a determinate nature and course 
cannot easily be traced ; but there are many 
others in which the natural course is as obvi- 
ous as the sun. Take the familiar example of 
cow-pox, small-pox, fever or ague. The dis- 
ease is regulated by fixed laws, so clearly that 
any medical book describes accurately the 
symptoms on given days of its progress. So 
with measles, scarlatina and many other acute 
affections, and less clearly, but perceptibly, 
with gout, rheumatism and inflammation. 
All of these go through a regular course in a 
shorter or longer time, and when every thing 
thus regularly proceeds, the constitution is 
safer than when some unusual accident has in- 
terrupted the natural progress. The Creator 
has perfected all the arrangements for the cure, 
and our sole business should be to give those 
arrangements full play. Every one knows 
that a severe cold will run through a course of 
increase, maturity and decline ; even a common 
boil runs through its regular stages, and if we 
apply to one stage the remedy belonging to 
another, the result is injurious. Instead of 
trying to cut short pleurisy, the moment we 






THE PERIODIC LAW. ' 29 

'learn its existence we must respect its natural 
'direction, and reserve our means to carry it 
'through the regular stages. 

" Thus must cures be more numerous and 
complete. But the public must cease to tempt 
their medical attendant to have ' something 
done ;' they must wait patiently, to see nature, 
' with the proper negative and positive medical 
skill, regain her healthy action." 

THE TYPE OF DISEASE. 

The Pall Mall Gazette calls attention to a 
'remarkable fact, stated by Dr. F. J. Brown, 
of Eochester, (England :) " Formerly the pea- 
sants were bled once or twice a year, losing 
sixteen ounces, and walking home without in- 
convenience. Of late years the same men and 
their sons have fainted from the loss of from 
four to eight ounces, and so the practice has 
been dropped." Dr. B., who seems to be a 
very careful observer, thinks that a change of 
type is periodic. Since the spring of 1862, 
the plethoric type is gaining on the nervous ; 
" Men can lose blood now who could not a 
few years ago." " The nervous type," he 
asserts, " came in with the first cholera epide- 
mic, and has lasted about the third of a cen- 
tury. If the nervous type disappears, we may 



30 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

hope that cholera will go with it. But the 
whole question of cycles of disease can scarcely 
yet be handled scientifically." 

THE WANDERING COMETS OF THE MIND. 

The return of seasons and the growth of 
plants indicate nature's unerring cycle, but in 
the planetary system this law is illustrated, and 
time is kept to the second. For centuries 
comets seemed an exception, but they more 
fully proclaim this law than the revolutions of 
Saturn — and thus with mental disturbances — 
the comets of the mind. Let them undergo 
the same inspection, and they shall be equally 
intelligible. " The mind, like the universe, 
has evidently its pervading law ; and the soul, 
like the solar system, gravitates according to 
the plan of balancing forces and recurring 
cycles." Says Dr. Holmes, " keep any line of 
knowledge ten years, and another line will in- 
tersect it." 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 31 



CHAPTER V. 

DISEASE AND INSANITY. 

Nor are we left to conjecture, for we find 
that diseases and plagues have their time of 
'visitations, and fevers are periodically inter- 
imittent. The physician can predict the crisis. 
And even in Insanity, where all order seems 
(defied, Periodicity is recognised. Derange- 
: ment, intelligent on this point, corroborates 
| the law, and Esquirol found it in Idiocy. Shall 
i madness have its method and sanity have none? 
[Shall reason understand every subject but 
itself, and surrender to chance ? 

In a hospital, the tendency of patients to 
suicide was epidemical; and this, not from the 
contagion of example, as great care was taken 
-to keep such information from each inmate ; 
and an intelligent physician has remarked days 
1 when there was simultaneous excitement, with 
consequent difficulty in management. He 
mitigated such recurrence by a diet less stimu- 
lating. 
At a meeting of the British Medical Asso- 



ll 



32 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

ciation, in Chester, 1866, (to which Dr. C. C. 
Cox was delegated by a similar meeting in this 
country,) an address was made by Professor 
Hughes Bennett, from which the following 
extract is made : " This mutual relation of the ll 
sciences has led to generalizations of the highest 
importance to our knowledge of vital action 
both in health and disease. Thus, it having 
been shown by Grove, that the various phys- 
ical forces, such as heat, light, electricity, 
gravity and chemical action, are all correla- 
tive ; it soon became apparent not only that 
there was a similar relation between the vital 
forces, such as those governing growth, nutri- 
tion, contractility and excitability, but also 
between these and the physical forces. It has 
further been shown, that just as matter is in- 
destructible, onty changing its condition, so is 
there a conservation of force which only alters 
its form. In the same manner that heat, light, 
electricity, gravity and chemical action are 
capable of being perpetuated in an incessant 
round, one to the other, so we must regard 
growth, contractility, sensibility and even the 
exercise of mind, as only varieties in form 
of that chemical force generated in nutrition, 
as this in its turn is only an altered manifesta- 
tion of" some other force." 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 33 

ISOLATION REMEDIAL. 

Memory's cycle, in derangement irresistible, 
is, in a sound mind, controllable. The recol- 
lection of some painful event, like a physical 
ftouch, wakes the midnight hour, and then 
Ivanishes in the engagements of the day. At 
might it returns at intervals so expanded that 
;we ask : " How came that long lost thought ?" 
•But the law is as clear as when the sore atten- 
tion was first tied to the shock. Hence, to 
•obviate derangement, we break the cycle of 
(previous associations. Inebriate Asylums may 
'show how far this isolation succeeds, but there 
is an historical fact highly suggestive. The ' 
'Mutineers of the "Bounty" abandoned their 
officers, and escaping to Piteairn's Island, be- 
i came so profligate as to threaten their own 
destruction ; but thus secluded, without any 
ligament to the purer past except an old Prayer 
book, they became wonderfully reformed, and 
when discovered, their piety shamed their 
English visitors. 

Pitcairn shows that truth is not only stranger, 
but stronger than fiction, where it has a fair 
field. 

THE CIRCULATION OF THOUGHT. 

The blood circulated in periodic cycles from 



34 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

man's creation, and yet was undiscovered until 
1620. Shall the physical heart obey this law, 
while the moral pulsations are abandoned to 
chance ? Then, instead of looking up from 
Nature, we should look down, the body 
yield to the lily, and the gem pale before its 
casket. But we rise from the natural, and 
some future Harvey may deduce a periodicity 
far superior to any physical law, and the dis- 
coverer exclaim : " When I consider the firma- 
ment of the mind, what is man that thou art 
mindful of him ?" Men may wonder why 
such discovery was so long delayed, and the 
Prophet dyed in blood so long misunderstood. 
Since Harvey's day the microscope has dis- 
covered that each particle of blood is a disc or 
globule, a planet in the veins, with its orbit in 
regular cycles; with its day and night in the 
bright arterial or dark venous. What next? 
Shall blood, the sustainer of thought, be thus 
minutely periodic, and thought itself have no 
cycle ? 

POPULAR COMMOTIONS. 

" The noise of the waves and the madness of 
the people" respond to each other ; they are 
under the same law, and hence popular com- 
motions never surprise the thoughtful. Bishop 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 35 

[Butler thought that nations, like individuals, 
,iad their seasons of derangement, and Mr. 
Burke predicted the French Revolution long 
oreviously. If the law applies to individuals, 
much more to communities, and how valuable 
its ascertainment. The Highlands were for 
benturies nuclei of dissension, until the gov- 
?rnnient, by enlistment, changed a positive 
vil into a positive good. 



36 THE PERIODIC LAW. 



CHAPTEK VI. 



EDUCATION. 



A teacher of large experience stated that in 
every eight years his school became so reduced 
as to threaten failure, but by steady con- 
tinuance its prosperity regularly returned. 
How encouraging this law to every one de- 
pending on numbers for support. It is as the 
regulator in mechanical motion. The faithful 
laborer cannot miss either the Nadir or the 
Zenith. The same popular wave laves the 
Capitol and the Tarpeian rock. Every busi- 
ness or profession is held by two opposing 
forces, and it approaches or recedes from the 
central sun, thus alternating summer and 
winter. " At evening time it shall be light." 

" Fortune you say flies from us ; she but circles 
Like the fleet sea-bird round the fowler's skiff, 
Lost in the mist one moment — and the next, 
Brushing the white sail with her whiter wing, 
As if to court the aim ; Experience watches 
And has her on the wheel." 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 37 

The mind is like a phial ; fill it and the super- 
fluity is lost ; and the mind itself is injured 
by the pressure, and even when the educator 
has graduated instruction to various capacities, 
he must anticipate a periodic expansion and 
contraction of the mind itself, so that the lesson 
to-day mastered is to-morrow unmanageable. 
Physical causes, as desks, ventilation, have 
inbdoubtless their influence, but we must consider 
moral conditions. A scholar excels his class- 
mates; the teacher and parents are greatly 
jencouraged. They praise the model, but how 
Jsoon is the tree withered. Attention droops 
lefelinto listlessness. Cannot science, which de- 
fects disease in the minute spores, discover 
dmoral deficiencies, wasting the memory and 
njthwarting the best devised educational sys- 
item? Are not moral epidemics as periodic as 
^physical ? This mental and moral cycle de- 
mands thoughtful study. 

In an essay on " Unconscious Tuition," 
Rev. Dr. Huntington asks, if" the dark days at 
school are totally inexplicable and inevitable 
phenomena ?" He believes that " whenever 
Physiology and Psychology are as exactly 
understood as the mathematical relations of 
Astronomy, these freaks of temperament may 
be predicted like the eclipse of the sun ; and is 
' 4 



38 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

not temptation itself subject to spiritual laws, 
which we may hope to comprehend as we 
have deeper fellowship with Him who hath 
put all things under his feet?" These new 
and high thoughts are the harbingers of a day 
dawn, and we agree with Professor Henry, 
that " the laws which govern the growth and 
operation of the human mind are as definite 
and as general in their application as those 
which apply to the material universe ; and it 
is evident that any true system of education 
must be based upon a knowledge and applica- 
tion of those laws." 

RELIGIOUS DEPRESSIONS. 

Religious seasons are not an arbitrary ap- 
pointment, but a demand of our nature. The 
Sabbath was made for man, and as the planets 
revolve round their sun, so the heart around 
its creator, embracing its shortest day — u !N"e- 
fastus dies," and then its summer gladness 
without sunset. 

We thus may solve many difficulties in 
biography, and learn why Brain erd and Mar- 
ty n were so alternately depressed and elevated. 
Is there a special grief or joy ? Mark if a year 
or month does not bring its counterpart. JS r or 
is the darkest day uncompensated. The gloom 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 39 

: of November brings the spring ; the fall of 
the leaf heralds the new-born bud, and the 
moral fallow reaps a harvest. 

" Giant Despair had doubtless made an end 
of them, but that he fell into one of his fits, 
<for he sometimes in sunshiny weather thus fell, 
and lost the use of his hands ; wherefore he with- 
drew and left them to consider what to do, 
and when he arose to pursue them, his limbs 
failed, for his fits took him again ; wherefore 
the Pilgrims erected a Pillar warning travellers 
of the Giant's castle," but they might have 
added that he was subject to periodic fits, and 
that Pilgrims may always find the castle key 
in their own bosom. 

" Alas !" says Robertson, " for the substitu- 
tion of an artificially created conscience for the 
sound and healthy one of humanity, whose 
tides are distinct in their noble music, like 
those of nature's ocean in its irresistible swell." 
And Robertson spoke from experience, for 
" the deeper his interest in his work, the 
greater his excitement ; the greater the excite- 
ment, the more morbid the reaction ; the 
more gloomy the aspect in which he saw his 
labors, the darker his misgivings of success." 

In a book, entitled " Man, Moral and Phys- 
ical," Rev. Dr. Jones remarks : " We have 



40 THE PEKIODIC LAW. 

known instances in which the seasons of spi- 
ritual joy and depression alternated like an in 
termittent disease, coming and going at regu- 
lar intervals. In Buenos Ay res, during thet 
prevalence of a north wind, moral derange- 
ments abound. A gentleman, generally amia- 
ble, was so affected by this wind as to quarrel 
with any one he met. Cowper's nerves were 
as sensitive to the atmosphere as mercury in 
the barometer. He rose cheerless and de- 
pressed, and brightened as the sun goes on. 
He had his four states of feeling, as the re- 
volving earth describes the four grand stages of 
the sun's progress in the ecliptic." 

In all cases of depression or excitement the 
patient does not see this law until the reflec- 
tive reaction occurs, just as Bunyan's Pilgrim, 
after passing a certain place, learned the cause 
of blasphemous thoughts; or, as Cole, the 
artist, who could not paint a new scene until 
the excitement subsided ; or, as Dr. Rush, who, 
writing on Diseases of the Mind, yet, in his 
own depression, forgot the " Physical Causes." 
Nor was he convinced until spiritual distress 
was removed by returning health. 

Says Mansell : " The luminary conscience, 
by whose influence the ebb and flow of man's 
moral being is regulated, moves around and 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 41 

along with man's little world, in a regular and 
' bounded orbit ; one side, and one side only, 
looks "downward upon its earthly centre ; the 
other, Avhich we see not, is ever turned up- 
wards to the all surrounding Infinite. And 
I those tides have their seasons of rise and fall, 
their place of strength and weakness ; and 
that light waxes and wanes with the growth 
and decay of man's mental and moral and 
religious culture ; and its borrowed rays seem 
at times to shine as with their own lustre, in 
rivalry, even in opposition, to the source from 
which they emanate." 

The uneasiness, which is so unaccountable, 
may result from a suspension of some occupa- 
tion or employment belonging to that hour, as 
when a person habituated to composition on 
Fridays, allowed the time to pass unimproved, 
and, consequently, the accumulation of mental 
force was wasted on magnified trifles, or the 
mind preyed on itself. In this case uneasiness 
is a signal warning. 

The journey of a day is life's pictorial. 
Obidah rises for his journey, animated by 
hope and incited by desire, but soon sinks with 
fatigue, wanders amidst devious paths, and at 
last discovers a light which beckons him to 
repose ; and thus we rise in the morning re- 



42 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

freshed, we wander amidst the intricacies of 
business, forget our early resolutions, become 
lost in perplexities, until evening restores the 
morning. calm and the shadow of the Almighty. 
There are periods of the day when one may 
safely bear an insult, at other times one may 
not argue with a friend. The moral day has 
its evening and its morning. How happy if 
we knew this diurnal cycle. How wise the 
knowledge of self! 

What are the coincidences of history and 
our own personal experience but the revela- 
tions of Periodicity ? The traveller lost in the 
forest unconsciously returns to the place of 
starting. 

THE LAW OF COINCIDENCE. 

There are many facts difficult to classify in 
our present imperfect knowledge, which, how- 
ever, point to some law of coincidence, as 
when you call upon a number of persons 
whose names you have recorded ; and, after a 
day's exertion, not one can be found ; while 
on the next day, without any effort, you meet 
one after another in immediate succession ; or, 
you are introduced to a stranger, whose name 
you never heard before, and on reading the 
next publication the eye rests upon the very 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 4:3 

name ; or, you experience some accident, and, 
Km opening a book, the very particulars arrest 
your gaze ; or, one makes some discovery, 
deemed entirely original, and across the ocean 
^some solitary thinker at the same time has 
Tjmade a similar discovery, and hence a life-long 
acontest. Or, one will read the scriptural les- 
tsons for the day, and they shall be found pre- 
cisely adapted to some recent event in one's 
own experience, family or political relations. 
1 All which suggests that there cannot be an in- 
eternal thought without some external corres- 
pondence as invariable as substance and 
I shadow, perceptibly proportioned to intensity 
, of light, or events are so related that one must 
| always accompany the other. 

This sympathy of nature with important 
1 providences has been often observed by our 
I standard authors ; as, " When beggars die 
there are no comets seen," or 

" When the Poet dies, 
Mute nature mourns her worshipper." 

Or, at the fall of our first parents, " Earth 
felt the wound ;" and each one will at once 
recall the portents of the Crucifixion. Indeed, 
it seems as if nature, to prevent mistakes, 
demands duplicates ; or, as Bishop Butler ob- 



44: THE PERIODIC LAW. 

serves : " There is a much more exact corres 
pondence between the natural and moral 
world than we are apt to take notice of. The 
inward frame of man does, in a peculiar man- 
ner, answer to the external condition and cir- 
cumstances of life in which he is placed. This 
is a particular instance of that general observa- 
tion of the son of Sirach, ' All things are dou- 
ble, one against another, and God hath made 
nothing imperfect.' " 






THE PERIODIC LAW. 45 



CHAPTER VII. 



SCIENCE AND MIRTH. 



In a choice painting, Hercules is represent- 
ed choosing between Wisdom and Pleasure. 
On the right, Wisdom stands sombre and 
melancholy, while Pleasure is surrounded by 
festive amusements. Is this just ? Is there a 
necessary estrangement between the two ? 
Make Wisdom more cheerful, or (far better) 
" let both united be." 

A distinguished writer says, that History 
jhas its bright side, and its very gloom may 
evoke a smile. Agassiz intimates, that amidst 
the wonderful designs of nature the mirthful 
is found ; and why not ? We have the prin- 
ciple within, why not its external correspond- 
ent ? The very lightning has its freaks. The 
London Times declares that England is the 
receptacle of old clothes, which entering the 
gulf of Leeds, &c, return under a renovated 
form to the discarding owners ; and the citizen, 
congratulating himself on the well-fitting 
Talma or Chesterfield, is dashed by thinking, 



46 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

" This coat may be substantially the very one 
I gave the beggar last winter." 

Nor does the curious transmigration cease 
here. It seems that cast off garments are used 
in cultivating the ground, and are particularly 
useful in raising hops ; so that the same citizen, 
tasting the glass of " Alsopp's Bitter," is ar- 
rested by thinking that his donation furnished 
the sparkling bead, and his liberality returned 
in a way unexpected. The Brahmin ate no 
animal food until he saw through a micro- 
scope, and the eagle's wound was intensified 
by seeing his own feather on the arrow. 

" To what base uses may we not return, 
Horatio ? Why may not the imagination trace 
the noble dust of Alexander till he find it 
stopping a bung-hole ?" But behold a nobler 
metempsychosis. The rejected garment of the 
king exchanged by him for the costly toga, 
with the superadded cask of Chian. 

This cycle of exchange is seen in depart- 
ments apparently most distant. " The earth 
and the air convert themselves into a plant, 
the flower into fruit, the fruit into flesh, and 
the animal at last dies and returns to the air 
and earth what they have transmitted to him." 

Our very toys are becoming scientific, and 
the aquarium exhibits a perennial cycle — the 
carbon of the fish and the oxygen of the plant. 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 47 



PRE-EXISTENCE. 



The unexpected thought that disturbs the 
mind, comes from undetected association with 
some past event, and may not this explain that 
Pre-Existence of which we all are conscious ? 
\I go into some new place and converse with a 
stranger, but I must have been here before, 
land I have seen that face repeatedly ; where, 
I know not, but the impression is indelible. 

A gentleman and his mother were travelling 
in Switzerland, and lodging in the room of a 
certain village, he exclaimed, " I have been 
here before !" She, knowing the contrary, 
revolved the matter in her mind. The nur- 
sery where her son was born was papered 
with the same figure as that on the Swiss 
wall, and he, unconscious of the connecting 
link, maintained that the room itself was the 
same ; and thus, some image on the memory 
returns in after years through some similar 
association, and we become conscious of pre- 
existence. 

POST-EXISTENCE. 

Directly the reverse of the above, is a state 
of mind which I shall call Post-Existence. I 
engage in an earnest conversation with a friend, 



48 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

and some days afterwards discover a meaning, 
which at first entirely escaped my attention. 
" Why did I not see it before ? " The reac- 
tionary calmness of clear reason enables me to 
see points concealed by the previous excite 
ment. The writing on the Dighton rock is 
plainly seen at low tide. 

When Bishop Butler was dying, he com- 
plained of spiritual darkness. Said his Chap- 
lain, " Come unto me, all ye that are weary 
and heavy laden." u That text," said the 
Bishop, " I never so appreciated as now ;" and 
how much more will he appreciate it where 
analogies fade before direct truth. 

DREAMS. 

How mysterious are dreams! How dark 
their shadow on the morrow ! Indeed, many 
abandon them as unaccountable. But that 
vampyre is the cycle of some past event or 
conversation. It is occasioned by some excess, 
a slight noise, the posture or a heated atmos- 
phere. It is a partial somnambulism, and if 
any friend could watch the dreamer he might 
see the cause of the painful impression. The 
very vampyre has its natural history. 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 49 



WRITING AND CONVERSATION. 

A curious illustration of mental Periodicity 
is furnished by a clerical friend, who restricted 
•his manuscript to twelve pages; but this con- 
venience became a necessity, so that whatever 
his subject, he could not shorten or prolong his 
•ideas beyond the restriction until another week 
allowed recuperation. 

Washington Irving said that there were times 
when he composed with great facility, but if 
jlie wrote on other occasions he must force his 
thoughts, and consequently re-compose ; and 
'this doubtless is the experience of all composers 
land speakers, who sometimes enjoy a facility 
of expression entirely independent of previous 
[preparation. One of our first extemporaneous 
speakers says, that in his best efforts he some- 
times loses all conscious hold on his mind and 
speech, and while perfectly sure that all is go- 
ing on well, it seems to him that some one else 
is talking, and he wonders who is thus speak- 
ing ; and perhaps in his worst efforts, he feels 
'as though some one were holding his thoughts 
and voice, and he struggles against the intruder. 

An intelligent conversation begins with gen- 
eral observations. It becomes animated by 
collision of thought ; the principal point is 
5 



50 THE PEKIODIC LAW. 

eagerly discussed; new ideas impart mutual 
satisfaction, until the inevitable pause recalls 
the dull beginning and a new idea seems im- 
possible. The bow of the tongue is bent until 
the pause allows recuperation. 

A poem is born, not made. The national 
heart is deeply moved, mind fuses with mind 
until the accumulated pressure bursts into a 
song cataract. The Marsellaise, like the Pa- 
rian statue, lived in the national mind ; a slight 
occasion embodied its fevered pulsations. Said 
the Mayor of Strasburg : " This city is shortly 
to have a patriotic ceremony, and you, De 
Lisle, must be inspired by these last drops to 
produce a hymn which conveys to the soul of 
the people the enthusiasm that inspired it.' 7 
Kouget De Lisle went to his room, and on his 
small clavicord, now composing the air before 
the words, and now the words before the air, 
combined them so intimately in his mind that 
he never could tell which was first, the air or 
the words, so impossible did he find it to sepa- 
rate the poetry from the music, and the feeling 
from the expression. He sang every things 
wrote nothing. 

This law of rhythm applies equally to every 
individual. Let the heart be clouded with 
sorrow or attuned to gladness, and some sym- 






THE PERIODIC LAW. 51 

^hony shall inwardly reverberate. Beethoven 
composed his grandest music after he had lost 
the sense of hearing, showing an internal sense 
'of harmony whose own reality dispenses with 
the aids by which it has been trained. Says 
|Bulwer : " In the world of the human heart 
'there is the same harmony as in the external 
universe. In fault and sorrow are the axioms, 
problems and postulates of a science." 

A depraved Italian painter failed to catch 

^the expression of the exquisite models before 

him; his paintings, like his character, were 

revolting to the pure-minded. But mark the 

reverse law t Leonardo D' Vinci tried nine 

J times to fix the countenance of St. John, and 

I each time he erased the laborious expression, 

^ and notwithstanding the complaints of his de- 

1 lay and threatened loss of stipend, he refused 

| to attempt the head of Christ until he better 

appreciated his character. Need I say that this 

* painting lives ? It was spared by Napoleon in 

"j the capture of Milan. 



52 THE PERIODIC LAW. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

RHYTHM. 

Strikingly similar to this law is the numeri- 
cal rhythm which pervades every department. 
The elements of the air and water combine 
only in certain arithmetical proportions, which 
no human force can change — a law whose 
execution explodes the battery and volcano. 
Salts crystallize only at certain angles, and the 
snow-flake is a pentagon or hexagon. The har- 
monies of music depend on numerical rhythm ; 
each note strikes certain vibrations in the at- 
mosphere, from the percussions of the deep base 
to the higher notes falling in a sharp blow. If 
another note intrude or miss its appointment, 
painful discord proclaims the violated law. 
The series of fractions in the leaves around 
the plant stem is the same which marks the pe- 
riods of the planets, the antennae of the polyp 
and the spines of the echinus, and when we 
ascend to history we find that kingdoms move 
in cycles wonderfully coincident. 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 53 



THE NUMBER SEVEN. 



On the 7th of the 7th month a holy ob- 
servance was ordained to the children of Israel, 
who feasted 7 days and remained 7 days in 
tents ; the 7th year was directed to be a Sab- 
bath of rest for all things, and at the end of 7 
times 7 years commenced the grand jubilee ; 
every 7th year the land lay fallow ; every 7th 
year there was a grand release from all debts, 
and bondmen were set free. From this law 
might have originated the custom of binding 
young men to 7 years' apprenticeship, and of 
punishing incorrigible offenders by transporta- 
' tion for 7, twice 7, or three times 7 years. 
Anciently, a child was not named before 7 
days, not being accounted fully to have life 
before that periodical day. The teeth spring 
out in the 7th month, and are shed in the 7th 
year, when infancy is changed into childhood. 
At thrice 7 years the faculties are developed, 
manhood commences, and man becomes legally 
competent to all civil acts ; at four times 7 a 
man is in full possession of his strength ; at 
five times 7 he is fit for the business of the 
world ; at six times 7 he becomes graver and 
wiser, or never ; at 7 times 7 he is in his 
apogee, and from that decays ; at eight times 



54 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

7 he is in liis first climacteric ; at nine times 7, 
or sixty-three, he is in his grand climacteric, 
or year of danger ; and ten times 7, or three- 
score years and ten, was, by the royal prophet, 
pronounced the period of human life. 

SCRIPTURAL NUMBERS. 

There are in Holy Scripture 12 cycles of 
40 years each, 6 of 450, 4 of 430, 3 of 1,000, 
viz., 1,000 years from the Abrahamic Cove- 
nant to Solomon ; 1,000 from the Exodus of 
Israel to the destruction of the Temple, and 
1,000 from the Dedication to the Birth of 
Christ. 

Rev. Dr. Mahan has kindly furnished the 
accompanying results of biblical investiga- 
tion : 

" The periodicity or significant recurrence 
of certain favorite numbers, such as 40, 7, 43C 
490, 1260 and the like, in the Hebrew chrc 
nology, has been amply demonstrated bj 
Browne in his OrdoSceculorum. In an inde- 
pendent examination of the same ground, 
corrected two or three places, in which Browne 
had departed from his own principle of literal 
interpretation, but found that this multiplied, 
instead of diminishing, the number of marked 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 55 

.symmetrical periods, as is shown in my little 
work entitled Palmoni. For instance, in that 
marked period extending from the Captivity 
in Babylon to the final Dispersion of the Jews, 
during which the four ' great beasts' come up 
out of the sea, there are no less than twenty 
exact periods of precisely 666 years. Thus, 
from 3428 A. M., the year of Manasseh, the 
first king carried into captivity, to 4094, when 

: Augustus became emperor, there are precisely 
666 years. Or, from 3528, the 'ninth year of 
Nebuchadnezzar,' when Jeremiah prophesied 

I the rejection of the Jews under the image of 
the 'bad figs,' to 4194, when Jerusalem was 
destroyed by Titus, is the same 666 years. 
Or, from the last year of Cyrus, 3594, to 4260, 
the final Dispersion of the Jews and their ban- 
ishment from Jerusalem under Hadrian, there 
is the same exact term. So, in general, from 
Manasseh the first fruits of captivity to the 
end of Cyrus who restored the captives, there 
is an interval of 166 years, of which 36 are 
precisely dated in the Scriptures ; in like man- 
ner, from Augustus to the final Dispersion of 
the Jews under Hadrian, there are 166 years, 
about 30 of which are dates of important 
events. Now, if we measure from all the 
dates, successively, of the first term, to corres- 



56 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

ponding dates of the second, we shall find, in 
some twenty instances at least, that the measure 
is precisely 666 years. We say, therefore, that 
the number 666, the ' number of the beast,' re- 
curs with a most remarkable periodicity du 
ring the beast period of history, namely, during 
the time when the four great empires, the 
1 beasts' of Daniel, had dominion given to them 
over the sacred people. 

" A wider examination will put it beyond 
question that the same principle of periodicity 
pervades all chronology ; that every grand de- 
velopment of human history has its favorite 
periods of years, which periods are expressive 
of certain appropriate ideas, and recur with a 
frequency which no theory of chance coinci- 
dences can begin to account for. When I 
wrote Palmoni, I thought the rule would not 
apply to modern history ; but, I have found, 
on thorough examination, that it does so ap- 
ply with marvellous precision, and that it ap- 
plies nowhere with more marked regularity 
than in our own times — this rational nine- 
teenth century. 

"It would need a volume, rather than a 
mere note, to show that all the names in the 
Hebrew and Greek Scriptures are so con- 
structed that when their number is ascertained, 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 57 

that is, when the numerical value of their 
component letters is summed up, these num- 
jbers will be found invariably significant. 

" Thus, the number of i the beast 5 is 666 ; 
but the number of Jesus is 888 : six being the 
jjnumber of secular perfection, and eight the 
gnumber of resurrection or new life. In like 
finanner the number 153, in St. John xxi., is 
manifestly used as a mystical or significant 
[number. But what does it signify ? It is the 
number of the Hebrew phrase, beni-ha-Elohim, 
\Sons of God. This can be ascertained by sub- 
stituting for the letters of that phrase the cor- 
responding ciphers, and by adding them up. 
And this, again, can be demonstrated to be no 
J isolated coincidence, no happy accident, but a 
principle pervading the entire structure of the 
I Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, by the follow- 
ing experiment : Take all the marked pas- 
, sages in the Old Testament Hebrew, or in the 
! New Testament Greek, in which the idea of 
\ ' the Sons of God' is particularly prominent. 
| For example, take the eighth chapter of St. 
j Paul's Epistle to the Romans: ascertain the 
i value of each word, and verse, and paragraph, 
: by the simple process of adding up the letters 
| they contain; finally, ascertain the value of 
the whole chapter. It will be found, first, 



58 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

that certain prominent phrases or words are ex- 
act multiples of 153 ; for example, the word 
joint-heirs is 1071 — seven times 153. Sec- 
ondly, the most expressive sections of the 
chapter are exact multiples of the same, 
Thirdly, the whole chapter will be found to 
come under the same rule. This last result, 
however, is less certain than the others, owing 
to some ' various readings' in the first part of 
the chapter, which embarrass our calculations. 
In the latter part of the chapter, which treats 
of the predestination of the Sons of God to 
glory, there are no variations of any import- 
ance; the 'number, 5 therefore, can be ascer- 
tained with precision, and this number is be- 
yond all question a multiple of 153. 

" I have tried the same experiment on mora 
than one hundred marked passages of the same 
character, in the Hebrew and in the Greek, 
and in every instance with the same result. 

" I have tried similar experiments, wit 
other significant numbers, such as 8, 13, 17, 
31, 42, or to take larger figures, 666, 777, 888, 
999, and the like, in thousands of passages, 
varying in length from a mere word or phrase 
to whole chapters, or even books, and have 
found invariably the number of any marked 
passage to be a significant multiple of 



?. 



■"• 






THE PERIODIC LAW. 59 



number appropriate to its prominent idea. 
Thus, thirteen is a number of sin ; the third 
chapter of Genesis describes the first sin and 
dts consequences ; this chapter in its numerical 
.value as a whole, and in its leading sections, 
(and in its most expressive verses or phrases, 
Jwill be found to be always an exact multiple 
of thirteen. 

" This will give a faint idea, perhaps, of the 
.result of an examination of the text of Scrip- 
ture, which has occupied me for many years, 
and in which every point has been tested by 
frequent reviews at long intervals, without re- 



• vealing a single exception to the rule that the 
I very.style of Scripture is constructed with a 
view to ' measure and weight and number ;' 
that, as in nature, every precious stone has its 
number, which science can ascertain, so, in 
Revelation, every idea has its arithmetical ex- 
pression ; and whenever any given idea is pro- 
minent there, a careful analysis will reveal the 
proper number of that idea, either in its sim- 
ple form or in some expressive multiple of the 
same." 

The Assyrian Empire lasted 1580 years ; the 
Egyptian, 1663; the Jewish, 1522; Grecian, 
1410 ; Roman, 1129 ; an average of 1461 
years, remarkable as the Sothiac period, which 



60 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

comprehended the existence of the Phoenix ; 
and thus says D'Aubigne : " From the heights 
where thoughtful spirits climb, the world's 
history, instead of offering as to the ignorant 
crowd a confused chaos, appears a majestic 
Temple, which the invisible hand of God 
creates, and which rises to His glory above 
the rock of humanity." 

Bishop Berkeley was a poet and a benefactor, 
who devoted his life and fortune to the cause 
of Education in America. Such a person was 
naturally a prophet, and in his only poem 
(1726) he thus predicts : 

" Westward the course of Empire takes its way ; 
The first four acts already past, 
The fifth shall close the drama with the day : 
Time's noblest offspring is the last." 



At a banquet given to the Chinese embassy 
in San Francisco, the Hon. Mr. Burlingam 
thus spoke : 



• 



" The first mission sent forth by one-third 
of the human race to the nations of the West 
lias arrived. The hour is struck ! The day 
is come for which Bicci, Verbrest, Schaal, 
Morrison, Milne, Bridgrnan, Culbertson, (we 
may add Schwartz, Heber, Martyn, Boone,) and 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 61 

a host of others lived, labored and died — a day 
; when the East would stretch forth its arms 
Howards the shining banners of Christianity 
^and civilization." 

Doubtless this Star of Empire will advance 
westward through China and Japan so auspi- 
| ciously opened, and the nations of the East 
shall follow its ray until it returns to its start- 
ing point on the plains of Bethlehem. 

When Benjamin West visited Rome in 
1760, he met a famous Improvisatore, who, 
learning that an American had come to study 
the fine arts, at once addressed him with the 
ardor of inspiration and to the music of the 
guitar : " All things of heavenly origin, like 
the glorious sun, move westward, and Truth 
and Art have their periods of shining and 
night. Rejoice, then, O venerable Rome, in 
thy Divine destiny, for though darkness over- 
throw thy seats, and though thy mitred head 
must descend to the dust, thy spirit, immortal 
and undecayed, already spreads towards a 
new world." 

Says D'Israeli: " The French Revolution 
called our attention to the public and private 
history of Charles the First and Cromwell, 
and taking a wider range, we found that in the 
governments of Greece and Rome the events 
6 



62 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

of those times had only been reproduced. The 
same principles terminated in the same results! 
and the same personages in the same drama. 55 
" A History of the French Revolution, by a 
Society of Latin Authors," describing inimi- 
tably the various events, is actually written by 
the Roman historians themselves. 

The Courier des Mats Unis sets forth the 
striking similitude of the leading events 
in the downfall of Charles X. and Louis 
Philippe ; both kings were dethroned at the 
age of 74 ; both abdicate in favor of grandsons, 
each 10 years of age. The previous combat 
with the people lasted in each case three days. 
During the year preceding each fall, bread 
rose to an exorbitant price, and, as if nature 
sympathized with portentous events, terrific 
storms arose immediately after each downfall. 
Indeed, the similarity will surprise any one not 
accustomed to the perpetual parallels of his- 
tory. " For very mysterious as the govern- 
ment of God is, yet we may observe through- 
out that His providences have a tendency to 
unfold themselves again and again under ana- 
logous circumstances and in similar results, 
and all these going on to further developments 
in that which is infinite.' 5 And this remark 
of Dr. Isaac Williams is illustrated by the fact, 



THK PERIODIC LAW. 63 

J | f ;hat the Israelites went out of Egypt, and 
Ohrist was put to death on the fifteenth day of 
die month JSTisan — a coincidence not intended 
by man. (Matt, xxvi., 5.) And the conquest of 
Judea by Pompey, B. C. 63, was on the very 
[day when the Jews were commemorating its 
previous capture by Nebuchadnezzar. 

A popular lecturer who had visited our princi- 
pal cities made a singular discovery. "Wherever 
i! he went they all laughed, listened, were inat- 
tentive, at the same points. The same boys 
in front eating nuts, the young gentleman 
and lady attentive to each other, the thinker 
absorbed, the citizen asleep ; the nervous, late 
comer, who generally succeeded in overthrow- 
ins; a bench or an umbrella at the most affect- 
j ing period. There was the same sympathetic 
J chord between each one's head and the open- 
| ing door, until at last the lecturer concluded 
that each audience was a large vertebrate fol- 
i lowing him. The same persons perhaps may 
1 never meet again, but the same lecture will 
always educe the same mental crystalization. 

This vertebrate principle is seen not only in 
promiscuous assemblages but more particularly 
in regularly organized bodies. Here the ver- 
tebrate expands and contracts ; and one will 
observe in our national and State legislatures 



64 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

a remarkable expenditure and then at once a 
grasp of retrenchment, a change entirely un- 
accountable, says a Washington correspondent, 
except on the principle of Periodicity. 

Each family is a miniature government, with 
its periodic elevations and depressions, a pen- 
dulum between a smile and a tear. Yesterday 
every thing was perverse, it was vain to stem 
the current. To-day all is right, nor is this 
necessarily Monday. Let not, then, the house- 
keeper impute to herself all yesterday's blun- 
ders. 

Says Herbert Spencer : " The rhythmical ten- 
denc}^ is traceable in all departments of life, in 
the despotism after revolution, the alternation 
of reforming and conservative epochs, ascetism 
and licentiousness, regularly recurring infla- 
tions and panics of commerce;" in fashions so 
carried from one extreme to another, that a 
gentleman of the old school in wearing one 
style of apparel found himself seven times 
fashionable during his life. " This rhythmical 
tendency affects our table habits, and, by im- 
plication, the dietary of the young in their 
progress to maturity." 



THE PERIODIC LAW. . 65 



CHAPTER IX. 

MORAL RETRIBUTION. 

All nations recognise the law of retribution. 
The good or bad deed will rise again ; Phillippi 
colonizes; Nemesis waits the hour and the 
man. The unerring cycle falls upon the mind 
in joyous recollection or painful remorse. We 
■may not predict the precise results, but we are 
•sure that sin will find its perpetrator. The 
cranes of Ibicus fly in circles. The overworked 
jland must repossess its Sabbaths. 

" And Bertram's might and Bertram's right 
Shall rest on Ellengowan's height." 

Says Alison : " The undeserved death of 
Marie Antoinette was one means of bringing 

: its own punishment. Slow but sure came the 
hour of Germany's revenge. On that day 
twenty years from which she ascended the 

I scaffold commenced the fatal route of France 
on the field of Leipsic." Said Vergniaud : " I 
perceive, citizens, that the revolution, like Sa- 
turn, will devour its own children ;" and Kou- 



(16 • THE PERIODIC LAW. 






get De Lisle escaped from his pursuers by 
hearing them sing his own Marsellaise. 

Says Goethe : " Moral epochs have their 
course as well as the seasons. We can no 
more hold them fast than the sun, moon and 
stars. Our faults perpetually return upon us, 
and herein lies the subtlest difficulty of self- 
knowledge." 

IS PERIODICITY FATALISTIC ? 

Quetelet declares, that, from the investiga- 
tions of years, there is more regularity in those 
events which allow of choice than in purely 
natural processes. The cycle of harvest fail- 
ures is modified by improved cultivation, and 
the ratio of mortality through sanitary ar- 
rangements. 

Had, then, the intercessions of a people no 
influence on the comet, the eclipse and the 
king's evil ? Their petition was granted, not 
by a change of law, but by a change of their 
own views through the revelations of Coper- 
nicus and others. Canute does not stop the 
waves, he transfers his own position. The In- 
dian looking through violet glass sees a con 
flagration, and his fears are removed by highe; 
intelligence ; and thus as prayer lessens, prais' 
increases. Thought is not absolute ; the wish 



: 



THE PEEIODIC LAW. 07 

is its father ; and the cycle of the debtor's 
| memory is always longer " coming round" than 
that of his creditor. 

So far from the Periodic Law being fatalistic, 
: it seems to reconcile the long controversy be- 
tween destiny and free will. God is unchange- 
able, and yet He may appoint laws as invaria- 
ble as Himself, but capable of modification up 
to a certain point, easily discernible by those 
who watch the growth of habits in themselves 
or in others. 

cui BONO? 

In an age so practical, the question is asked, 
" Cui Bono V ' " Of what use is the Periodic 
Law ?" The same inquiry was made of Frank- 
lin as to his electrical experiments, and he re- 
plied, " What is the use of an infant ?" " The 
statement cannot be too often repeated," says 
Professor Henry, " that each branch of know- 
ledge is connected with every other, and that 
no light can be gained by one which is not re- 
flected on all ;" and he illustrates this by the 
discoveries of a German astronomer, who, for 
thirty years observed the sun spots, and was 
rewarded by ascertaining that they recurred 
in periods of eleven years ; and, strange to 
say, General Sabine afterwards discovered 



6* THE PEKIODIC LAW. 

that the periods of magnetic disturbances co- 
incide with the recurrence of solar spots. And 
so, from the tables of Dr. Kane, " Mr. Schott 
found periods of extreme cold in six days, and 
always at full moon, while the least cold was 
at new moon ; thus showing that scientific 
researches will lead to valuable results not an- 
ticipated, and that in time dull meteorological 
tables will not only reflect the past but fore- 
shadow the future, and enable us by their 
monitions to avail ourselves of the benignity, 
or guard against the ravage of the coming 
day." 

The advantage of the Periodic Law will ap- 
pear in the elevation of immutable laws, in 
place of those artificial ordinances which legis- 
lators have devised. How often has man tried 
by statute to graduate values, and yet all such 
restrictions have been as useless as command- 
ing the waves or fulminations against a comet. 
Man's interference, will be found not only a 
blunder but a crime ; imperium in irwperio, 
and the experimenter will be rebuked as he 
who would distribute the rain. 

The newly discovered physical and mental 
laws become moral, realizing that kingdom 
anticipated by Bishop Butler, self-executing 
and harmonious; the prayer of ages is an- 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 69 

swered, and God's will is done on earth as in 
Heaven. The warnings of history declare, 
" Refrain from these laws, and let them alone, 
lest haply ye be found even to fight against 
God." The President of the Social Science 
Association says : " That the limitation of the 
iday's work to any number of hours will defeat 
itself, and the operative is governed by laws 
common to all sorts and conditions of men, 
and which will inevitably prove superior in 
strength and duration to any rules which he 
may form for himself, his trade or his class." 
Says Edmund Burke : " Our paper is of value 
in commerce because it has none in law." 

And I am told that " Science is sometimes 
immoral?" Its truths never are; and Dr. 

( McCosh shows from Plutarch that the cycle of 
science embraces the faith both of the peasant 

( and the most advanced scholar. Sir Isaac 
Newton declares, that natural and moral phi- 

i losophy progress together, and the golden 

I numbers of Meto, used for the Olympic games, 

1 now determine the Easter festival. 

THE CYCLE OF SCIENCE. 

Says Dr. McCosh : " The enlightened phi- 
losopher who has penetrated the farthest into 
the mvsteries of nature, arrives at last at the 



70 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

conclusion with which the believing savage 
and peasant set out : that God is seen in the 
rain, sunshine and in every event. The partial 
views he obtained in climbing the hill of science 
were more confused than those he obtained in 
the plain below ; and it is not until he reaches 
the summit, and the whole scene stretches out 
before him, that they become clear and com- 
prehensive. Human science contemplated 
under this aspect is a cycle ; as we go around 
it we obtain many pleasant and instructive 
views, but we arrive at last at the point we 
set out — simple faith in an all acting God." 

The common proverbs of the people embody 
the highest maxims of philosophy. 






THE PERIODIC LAW. 71 



CHAPTER X. 

i 

THOUGHT INDESTRUCTIBLE. 

Will thought die simultaneously with the 
body turning to dust ? Scattered by the 
winds or consumed in flame, the dust itself 
assumes another form more refined ; and how 
often do memories long buried rise in their 
original vividness. The drowning man re- 
membered an unkind act forgotten since child- 
hood, and the early language of the dying 
Swede was heard by the surprised bystanders. 
This reduction of the spiritual principle to law 
is sometimes regarded as materialistic ; but the 
grossest material is indestructible to the eye 
of science, which traces the psyche from the 
grub, detects the inward soul beneath the 
outward, and looks not on the things which 
are seen, but on those not seen. The returning 
cycle of early impressions is familiar, and the 
future world is the post-existence of the 
present. 

The following lines, like the past they com- 
memorate, often return on the waif-tides of 
journalism : 



72 THE PERIODIC LAW, 

THE RIYEB OP TIME. 

" Oh, a wonderful stream is the river of Time, 

As it runs through the realms of tears ; 
With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme, 
And a broad'ning sweep, and a surge sublime, 
That blends with the ocean of years. 

How the winters are drifting like flakes of snow, 

And the summer like buds between ; 
And the year in the sheaf — so they come and they go 
On the river's breast, with its ebb and flow, 

As it glides through the shadow and sheen. 

There's a musical isle on the river of Time, 
Where the softest of airs are playing ; 

There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime, 

And a song as sweet as a vesper chime, 
And the Junes with the roses are staying. 

And the name of this isle is the Long Ago, 

And we bury our treasures there ; 
There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow — 
There are heaps of dust, but we loved them so ! 

There are trinkets and tresses of hair. 

There are fragments of songs that nobody sings, 

And a part of an infant's prayer ; 
There's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings, 
There are broken vows and pieces of rings, 

And the garment that she used to wear. 

There are hands that are waved when the fairy shore 

By the mirage is lifted in air ; 
And we sometimes hear through the turbulent roar 
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before, 

When the wind down the river is fair. 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 73 

Oh ! remembered for aye be that blessed isle, 

All the days of our life till night — 
When the evening comes with its beautiful smile, 
And our eyes are closing to slumber awhile, 

May our ' greenwood ' of soul be in sight ! " 



MENTAL SYMPATHY. 

Thought not only survives but vindicates its 
power in ways apparently miraculous. Coining 
events notify the practiced eye; unmistakable 
instinct is independent of visible proof, and the 
solitary thinker beholds far in advance of his 
time. You at once penetrate through polished 
manners and winning smiles to the character, 
and subsequent experience confirms the unde- 
finable warning. 

By concentrated thought the prisoner of 
the Bastile, with a cord and knife, cuts his 
chains, scales the roof, penetrates the wall and 
is free; the unartistic monk carves by soul- 
intensity the crucifix engraved on his heart. 
You think of a friend, and he comes ; or gaze 
intently on him in a crowd, and he recognises 
you. 

This sympathy outstrips the lightning, and 

soars above the limitations of time and space. 

Two classmates graduated ; the one became a 

merchant in New- York, the other emigrated 

7 



74 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

to the Western frontier ; the former intimacj* 
was entirely forgotten, until the impression of 
his suffering classmate in the West led the 
merchant to send the needed aid. That friend 
was destitute. A snow-storm had blocked the 
roads, stopped the usual communications, and 
without bread he turned his thoughts East- 
ward, and wrote to his former classmate. The 
aid came before the letter reached the mer- 
chant. 

Simultaneous observations of the weather 
develop laws new and useful. Has this 
simultaneousness of thought no importance? 
What if the deep impression or uneasiness as 
to some absent friend be partially the effect of 
his concentrated thought on myself? Is a 
particular desire self-originating, or does it 
come from another independent intelligence? 
A gentleman interested in certain property 
returned from Europe after a fruitless search 
for the title. In general conversation he 
casually mentioned his failure, and was accosted 
by a stranger who had in his possession the 
papers in question, and who was himself igno- 
rant of their ownership. Says Isaac Taylor : 
"The great miracle of Providence is, that no 
miracles are needed to accomplish its purpose. 
Countless series of events are travelling from 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 75 



• remote quarters towards the same point, and 

ieach series moves in the beaten track of natu- 
ral occurrences, but their intersection at the 
very moment in which they meet shall serve, 

j perhaps, to give a new direction to the affairs 

I of an empire." 

MORAL INFLUENCE. 

If mental sympathy be such, what must be 
the force of moral influence, that essential of 
Omnipotence? We know that gravitation is 
proportioned to the weight and inversely to 
the square of distance. From the falling mi- 
crocosm Newton deduced laws which harmo- 
nized the material universe. Can we analyze 
the elements of moral force ? There is one 
law — energy from self-denial, which regulates 
the duties of every station and the advance- 
ment of every faculty — elevating the smallest 
act to the highest proportions, annihilating 
distance and establishing relations between 
persons and climes unapproachably distant. 
This oracle proclaims the good Samaritan's 
neighbor, blending in one the foreign and do- 
mestic : " The Son of Man who is in heaven," 
because heaven is mercy embodied. 

Physical force diminishes, the projectile falls 
from its start, but in moral force you mark the 



76 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

beautiful reverse. The prophet has no honor 
in his own country — the inventor languishes — 
posterity builds him a monument. The fuse 
of a good deed burns slowly and imperceptibly. 
You may count its tardy flashes. u It is dead !" 
No, it lives, and its reverberations are heard at 
the Judgment. 

The Cross has now more than four attending 
friends. Heber and Martyn have larger audi- 
ences than on the banks of the Ganges, and 
thousands testify that u the pains of the vicari- 
ous benefactor are generally proportioned to 
the extent or malignity of the evils he labors 
to remove." 

If this moral force be so efficient, why "toil 
all the night and take nothing ?" Why these 
wrecks of u splendid efforts," " exhaustive ar- 
guments," " magnificent plans ?" They do not 
contain the essential moral of true success. 
The force of the physical, the concentration of 
the mental, the ingenuity of the human absorb 
the moral. We employ questionable motives 
and agencies, forgetting that God accomplishes 
the greatest results by the smallest instrumen- 
talities, and one word in His name is as the 
sling of David, the widow's mite or the pub- 
lican's prayer. 

And even when the intention is good, we 



THE PERIODIC LAW. 77 

must " run lawfully" in observing physical, 
mental and social laws whose infringement 
brings invariable punishment. Was it mys- 
terious that the young reformer failed when he 
overtasked his faculties, requiring stimulants 
destructive of self-control and moral influence ? 

HEAVENLY ORDER. 

u Order is Heaven's first law," and is earth 
released -from the obligation ? Bishop Hop- 
[j kins observes, that " the love of form and order 
1 is planted by the Deity himself in every man's 
j bosom. For what else occupies the toil and 
1 stimulates the ambition of mankind but the 
iexercise of this very principle?" From this 
| tendency we infer the characteristics of heaven. 
I And as the present succeeds the Silurian pe- 
riod, as God prepared- man's fuel ages previ- 
ously, so he also prepares our present probation 
for " that new world wherein dwelleth right- 
eousness." 

That universal adaptation of means to the 
end cannot fail here. We have now the advan- 
cing principles — we must possess hereafter the 
corresponding mansions. The discoveries of 
science, recurring seasons, undeviating planets, 
the cycles of mind and matter point upwards, 
and though Kevelation is quite reticent as to 



78 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

the essential glories of heaven, the Apocalypse 
declares dimensions, times, quantities and 
numerals ; the Tree of life transplanted from 
paradise reproduces monthly fruits, and " its 
leaves are for the healing of the nations." 

Shall we there be alternately excited and 
depressed — our thoughts disturbed by each 
transient agitation — our days of anticipated 
joy strangely clouded ? The cycles of thought 
shall, in their beauteous recurrence, as far 
exceed nature's cycles as the substance its 
shadow. The dying Hooker fixed his eye on 
Heaven's order — the angels' calm obedience — 
and he longed to realize this corrective of 
earth's perturbations. 

The very figures and types which describe 
heaven are periodic, the river of life, the sea, 
the tree, the light and the sound, whose undu- 
lations are as the tidal wave ; and when we 
read that " there were seven lamps of fire 
burning before the throne, which are the seven 
spirits of God," we recollect that light itself is 
composed of seven colors visibly blended in 
one emerald bow. If a mountain represents 
" Jerusalem above," these numerical types 
and patterns, which we understand, suggest 
higher periods, which eye hath not seen, and 
Heaven's choral chant — 






THE PERIODIC LAW. 79 

" The hymn that rolls its tide 
Along the realms of upper day." 

" When the absolute dependence of creatures 
is thoroughly felt, the beautiful- orders of the 
heavenly Hierarchy, rising and still rising 
towards perfection, may be seen and admired, 
I without hazard of forgetting Him who alone 
is absolutely perfect." 

The highest Periodic Law is no materialized 
cycle, but an infinite range of orbit around 
God's throne diffusing the greatest happiness. 
And shall we make no assimilation here ? 
Shall our thoughts, unintelligible to life's close, 
then plunge like rapids into this glory ? Such 
a change has no parallel in the progressive pe- 
riods of nature, in the cycles of history, in 
man's growth, physical, mental or moral. This 
law, like the beauteous bow, embraces earth 
and heaven, the intricacies of thought here and 
the infinite ranges hereafter; and as we realize 
its efficiency in the world of nature we shall 
appreciate its excellency in the Kingdom of 
Grace. 

" My mind to me a kingdom is." 



APPENDIX. 



Natural and Revealed Religion. {Page 14.) 

The Sabbath is a part of this Periodic Law, the 
bridal between natural and revealed religion, an 
evidence new and beautiful ; the " Horse Paulinse " 
show undesigned coincidences between different 
parts of Scripture ; " Natural Theology " dis- 
closes benevolent design in animated nature ; 
" Butler's Analogy " proves a parallelism between 
the course of Providence and revealed religion ; 
but the Periodic Law shows that He who com- 
manded the septennial fallow, wrote the same 
law on the ground ages previously. The ex- 
humed marbles of Nineveh corroborate sacred 
history, and the unploughed ground of Palestine 
harmonized with the Jewish statutes. Thus, 
while the heavens declare the glory of God, the 
earth showeth His handiwork, and the floods lift 
up their voice. The beams of science falling on 
the ground evoke the pauseless chant. 

Cicada Septexdeciai. (Page 18.) 

{From Latrobe's Rambles in Forth America, 1835.) 

" The observations of a past century had shown 
the inhabitants of Pennsylvania and Maryland 



82 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

that every seventeenth year they were visited by 
countless hordes of the Cicada tribe, {Septen- 
decim,) distinct in habits and aspect from those 
whose annual appearance and mode of life were 
understood. Though of a different tribe, and 
with perfectly different habits from the locusts of 
the East, (gryllus migrator ions ^) the fact of its 
occasional appearance, as though by magic, in 
such vast swarms, had caused it to be familiarly 
alluded to by that name. Its first appearance had 
been in 1817, and its re-appearance was thus con- 
fidently predicted for the third or fourth week in 
May this year, (1835.) The first appearance in 
Canada was in May, 1749, and every seventeen 
years, a few days later until 1817, when they 
came from 26th of May to the beginning of June. 

" Nature, true to her impulses and the laws by 
which she is so mysteriously governed, did not 
fail to fulfil the prediction. On the 24th of May, 
and the following day, the whole surface of the 
country in and about Philadelphia suddenly teem- 
ed with this singular insect. The subject inter- 
ested me, and as during these days I had oppor- 
tunity of being hourly attentive to the phe- 
nomena, both here and in Maryland, I send you 
the result of my observations. 

" The first day their numbers were compara 
lively few, the second day they came by myriads ; 
and yet a day or two might pass before they 
reached their full number. I happened to be 
abroad the sunny morning, which might be called 
the day of their birth. At early morning the 
insect in the pupa state may be observed issuing 
from the earth in every direction by the help of 
a set of strongly barbed claws on the fore-legs. 
Its colour then is of a uniform dull brown, and it 






APPENDIX. 83 

.greatly resembles the perfect insect in form except 
in the absence of wings, ornaments and antenna?. 
The first impulse of the imperfect insect on de- 
taching itself from its grave is to ascend a few 
jinches or even feet on the trunks of trees, at the 
foot of which their holes appear in the greatest 
number, or upon the rail fences, which are soon 
thickly sprinkled with them. In these positions 
they straightway fix themselves firmly by their 
barbed claws. In half an hour you will observe 
the next change. The shell is split from the back 
of the head to the rings of the abdomen, and the la- 
bor of self-extrication follows. With many a throe 
the tail and hind legs appear through the rent, 
then the wings extricate themselves from a little 
case in the outer shell where they lie exquisitely 
folded up, but do not yet unfurl themselves, 
and lastly the head, with its antenna?, disengages 
itself, and you behold the new born insect freed 
from its prison. The slough is not disengaged, 
but remains firmly fixed in the fibres of the wood, 
and the insect languidly crawling a few inches 
remains as it were in a doze of wonder. It is 
rather less than an inch in length, and appears 
humid and tender; the colours are dull, the eye 
glazed, the legs feeble, and the wings on opening 
appear crumpled and unelastic. All this passes 
before the sun has gained his full strength. As 
the day advances the colours become more lively, 
the wings attain their full stretch, the body dries 
and is braced up for its future little life of activity 
and enjoyment. 

" Between ten and eleven the newly risen tribes 
begin to tune their instruments ; you become con- 
scious of a sound filling the air different from the 
ordinary ones which may meet your ear. A low, 



84 . THE PERIODIC LAW. 

distinct hum, like the simmering of an enormous 
caldron, swells imperceptibly, changes its charac- 
ter and becomes fuller and sharper, thousands 
seem to unite, and at 1 P. M. the whole country- 
rings with the unwonted sound. The insects are 
now seen lodged in or flying about the foliage 
above. 

" Well may the children rejoice at the sound, for 
their hands will never want a plaything for many- 
days to come. Well may the birds of the forest 
rejoice, for this is their season of plenty. The 
pigs and poultry too, fatten on the innumerable 
swarms which soon will cover the ground in 
their declining strength. 

" The pretty insect, with its dark body, red eyes 
and glassy wings, interlaced by bright yellow 
fibres, enjoys but a little w T eek, and that merry 
harping from sunrise to sundown continues but 
six days. Its character would be almost impos- 
sible to describe, though I hear its singing every 
time I think of the insect. The sound produced 
is a strong vibration of musical chords by inter- 
nal muscles upon a species of lyre or elastic 
membrane, covered with net-work and situated 
under the wings. The female insect may utter a 
faint sound, but how I do not know. It is the 
male who is endowed with the means of instru- 
mentation. Though the sound is generally mo- 
notonous, as long as the insect is uninterrupted, 
there is at times a droll variety ; but what it ex- 
presses, jealousy or some other passion, I cannot 
say. It is well described by the w^ord JPha-ro, 
the first syllable being long sustained, and con- 
nected with the second, pitched nearly an octave 
lower by a drawling smorzando descent. 

" The closest attention does not detect their eat- 



APPENDIX. 85 

I ing any thing, and excepting the trifling injury- 
occasioned by the female laying her eggs, they 
are perfectly innoxious. The end of their brief 
existence above ground is the propagation of 
their species. In a few days the female begins 
to lay her eggs. She is furnished with an ova- 
positor in a sheath on the abdomen, composed of 
two serrated hard parallel spines, which she 
works with an alternate perpendicular motion. 
She selects the outermost twigs and makes lon- 
gitudinal incisions in the under bark or wood, 
where she lays rows of tiny eggs. She then 
crawls up the twig a few inches yet further from 
the termination, and makes two or three perpen- 
dicular cuts inta the very pith. Her duty is now 
over. Both male and female become weak, the 
former ceases to sing, they pine away, become 
blind, fall by myriads, and in ten or fifteen days 
after their first appearance they perish. The 
perforated twigs die, the first wind breaks and 
scatters them on the ground. The eggs origi- 
nate small grubs, which are thus enabled to reach 
the ground without injury, where they disappear, 
digging down into the earth. Year after year, 
summer after summer, the sun shines in vain for 
them ; they " bide their time ! " Their existence 
is forgotten, a generation passes away, the sur- 
face of the country is altered, lands are reclaimed, 
streets laid out and trampled on, houses built 
and pavements hide the soil. 

" Still, though man forgets the locust, God does 
not. What their interval life is we know not. 
Traces of them have been found eight or ten feet 
under ground. When seventeen years have gone, 
the memory of them returns and they are ex- 
pected. A cold, wet spring may retard, but 

8 



86 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

never have they failed to appear. By a common 
impulse they rise, pierce through the hard clay 
of pathways, through gravel, between the joints 
of stones and pavements into the very cellars — 
like their ancestors — a marvel in the land, to sing 
their blithe song of enjoyment under the bright 
sun and amidst the verdant landscaj^e — like them 
to fulfil the brief duties of their species and close 
their mysterious existence by death. We are 
still children in the small measure of our know- 
ledge and comprehension with regard to the 
phenomena of the natural world. 

" We may venture to prophesy the re-appear- 
ance of the Cicada Septendecim on the coasts of 
Maryland and Virginia for the year 1851. I 
ascertained that all these insects sung in one 
musical key, C. sharp, (terminating in B. flat.)" 

This interesting account by Mr. Latrobe has 
been abundantly verified by my own observation. 
Residing at Princeton, N. J., in 1834, I remember 
the woods and orchards surrounding the college 
swarming with the risen Cicada, and vocal with 
their song. In 1851, residing near the Eastern 
Fountain, Baltimore, I found the same peculiarities 
noticed previously. And now, from my window 
overlooking the Park, I notice the children chas- 
ing the flying locusts, and the streets filled with 
the remarkable monotone. Their appearance was 
about the first of June, 1868, and missing the 
elm trees, which were cut down in 1862, they 
collected on the few remaining poplars. Their 
song dirge was about June 20th. Connected 
with the uniform note mentioned by Mr. Latrobe, 
I remarked a very sharp occasional tone, which 
probably escaped his observation. 

The appearance of this insect must be interest- 



APPENDIX. 87 



ing to many others besides the naturalist. Their 
localization on this continent ; their long hiber- 
I nation and preservation several feet under ground ; 
* their simultaneous departure and re-appearance; 
their very short stay after seventeen years pre- 
J paration ; their short uniform song, and their pecu- 
I liarity of laying eggs ; the events which have oc- 
' curred since, and will occur before 1885, all these 
i invest the Cicada with mystery. We ask, " why 
1 this waste ; such complicated design and results 
' so disproportionate ; seventeen years absorbed in 
a week's song ? " We think deeper and again 
ask, " may not these insects be sent to teach us 
truths long buried like themselves ; a resurrection 
of laws almost forgotten ; harmonies which de- 
clare the glory of God, not for a life week, but 
pauseless as eternity ? " 

The Locusts. 

[From the Baltimore Sun, June 18, 1868.] 

In the advance sheets of a work on " Periodic 
Law," by Rev. Geo. A. Leakin, A. M., Baltimore, 
now being published, we find in the appendix an 
interesting extract on the subject of the seven- 
teen-year locusts, from "Latrobe's Rambles in 
North America, in 1835," generally confirmatory 
of the facts mentioned in The Sun yesterday in 
connection with the admirable and exhaustive 
work of the late Dr. G. B. Smith. It may here 
be remarked, that the singular fact seated by 
Dr. Smith that the locust leads an entirely soli- 
tary life (except in times of mating) is confirmed 
by the observations of a correspondent, who has 
given considerable attention to this extraordinary 
insect. There is also an additional fact mentioned 



88 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

by Mr. Latrobe, that the first appearance of the 
locusts in Canada was in May, 1749. His de- 
scription of the peculiar song of the newly risen 
tribes is graphic. 

In the forthcoming work, in which the univer- 
sality of the Periodic Law is set forth in a most 
interesting manner, the application of the law to 
locusts seems appropriate, those insects which 
disappear and appear again at the end of sev- 
enteen years, only to sing a short, glad song, and 
then perish. 

Spiritual Insight. (Page 38.) 

The ancients had mechanical appliances un- 
known to us, and to this day the construction of 
the Pyramids, the transportation of the immense 
stones from distant quarries, and their elevation 
to such a height, surprise the modern engineer. 
But may there not have been a moral science, the 
product of close observation and great purity of 
character, by which one might anticipate the years 
of famine, and provide abundantly in the years 
of plenty ? 

Professor Huxley observes that, "the great 
deeds of philosophers have been less the fruit of 
their intellect than the direction of that intellect 
by an eminently religious tone of mind." 

Spiritual Laws. (Page 41.) 

The object of Farrar's sermons is to show how 
we can give the certainty of science to the facts 
of religious experience. 

" When we ask whether the religious life is 
subject to laws, the analogy of the whole of 






APPENDIX. 89 

God's government, both moral and spiritual, 
would suggest the presumption that the spiritual 
. also must be directed according to a system of 
laws either discoverable or inscrutable, that it 
might excite surprise why we should ask the 
question." 

" There is a world of life and of thought of 
, which we detect the traces but cannot under-' 
' stand the nature. And thus far, accordingly, 
the spiritual life, be it regarded as intellectual or 
emotional, is^supernatural ; but we must be care- 
ful, on the other hand, not to disconnect the 
spiritual life from the human mind, nor to isolate 
it entirely from the ordinary facts of mental and 
emotional science. And in this respect Bishop 
Butler's sermons will always have such immense 
value. There may be possibly in them a slight 
defect in direct recognition of the life spiritual ; 
but, with this exception, we cannot too closely 
study the method in which he shows that even 
the deepest feelings, such as the love of God, are 
compatible with human nature. It was the dis- 
pute which had been opened in France shortly 
before his day by the mysticism of Quietism 
which led him to see that such a reconciliation 
of the supernatural and natural was possible ; and 
who among us does not feel what a reality it 
would give to many a discourse on spiritual sub- 
jects in the present day, if the minds of preachers 
were imbued with the common sense, with the 
science of the bishop's writings ?" 

If a natural history of Enthusiasm be practica- 
ble, why not a similar history of that spiritual 
life of which enthusiasm is a development ? 

The truths mentioned by Farrar are especially 
important to all who deal with spiritual interests 



90 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

—the hidden springs of conduct. They will see 
that to avoid spiritual malpractice they must 
have some knowledge of that interior world on 
which they work ; and is it objected that the 
Holy Spirit is a substitute for this wisdom, that 
His motions are undiscernible as the wind ? 
This objection would not apply in regions where 
the wind blows with undeviating regularity. 

The Holy Spirit acts agreeably with man's 
internal constitution as with external providence ; 
and if Bezaleel is authorized to construct the 
Tabernacle, he is not warranted in disregarding 
the laws impressed on timber and stone ; and 
can the laws of the immortal temple be slighted 
with impunity ? 

The bee-taker, serpent-charmer, horse-tamer, 
understand the constitution of these respective 
animals, and hence their success. The restless- 
ness of childhood is an indispensable probation, 
and if parents continually interfere with this 
vivacity they will weaken in so doing all judi- 
cious control ; and thus if the minister adapt not 
his instructions to the varying phases of the hu- 
man mind, he will resemble the empiric who pre- 
scribed one remedy for every disease, or, which 
is perhaps worse, substitute terror for comfort, 
or speak peace where there is no peace. The 
lapidary in cutting the diamond transversely de- 
stroyed its value. 

Says Alexander on religious experience : " The 
spiritual physician who has the cure of diseased 
souls takes much less pains to inquire minutely 
and exactly into the maladies of his patients than 
is observable in physicians of the body. The 
patience and ingenuity with which men of the 
medical profession make experiments repulsive 



APPENDIX. 91 

to our natural feelings, is highly commendable 
and worthy of imitation. Many of our young 
preachers, when they go forth on their important 
errand, are poorly qualified to direct the doubt- 
ing conscience or to administer safe consolation 
to those troubled in spirit." 

Nor must we go far to gain this knowledge, 
as by a beautiful law the faithful performance of 
duties promotes the highest improvement of our 
faculties ; and it should never be forgotten that, 
in either giving or receiving instruction, a single 
idea incorporated in action is worth more than 
all external influences combined ; nay, such su- 
perfluity becomes to the mere recipient a positive 
injury. 

Foster inquires, " why the Gospel has such 
little hold on educated men ?" Not because 
wanting in highest adaptation, but because of a 
misapplication of its truths. Men say, " there is 
no correspondence between the instruction we 
hear and our internal constitution, and if you are 
mistaken in earthly things we know, how can we 
receive the heavenly things you declare ?" 

True religion never produces but mitigates in- 
sanity. It gives a right judgment in all things, 
substituting certainty for those doubts which so 
abound, and guarding equally against a reliance 
on mere externals and transitory emotions. 

Did the mind consist of memory alone, we 
should study its wonderful ranges ; but when it 
comprises reason, affection, will, reacting on each 
other, how assiduously should we seek this know- 
ledge ? 

The following lines of S. T. Coleridge on 
Education will equally apply to all spiritual 
training : 



92 THE PERIODIC LAW. 



Love, Hope and Patience. 

" O'er wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule, 
And sun thee in the light of happy faces ; 
Love, Hope and Patience, these must be thy graces, 
And in thine own heart let them first keep school. 
For as old Atlas on his broad neck places 
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it — so 
Do these upbear the little world below 
Of Education — Patience, Love and Hope. 
Methinks, I see them grouped, in seemly show, 
The straightened arms upraised, the palms aslope, 
And robes that touching as adown they flow, 
Distinctly blend, like snow embossed in snow. 
O part them never ! If Hope prostrate lie, 

Love too will sink and die. 
But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive 
From her own life that Hope is yet alive ; 
And bending o'er with soul-transfusing eyes, 
And the soft murmurs of the mother dove, 
Woos back the fleeting spirit and half supplies — 
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love. 
Yet haply there will come a weary day, 

When overtasked at length 
Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way, 
Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength, 
Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loth, 
And both supporting does the work of both." 

We desire especially to commend these ad- 
mirable lines to our readers. As a poem of its 
kind, it is well-nigh perfect, both in the concep- 
tion and the execution. It is philosophy, senti- 
ment, beauty, blended into one by the harmoni- 
ous power of the imagination. As a study of 
poetical art, it requires, as all poetry of a high 
order, thoughtful and imaginative reading ; and 
the power and beauty of it will reveal them- 
selves on repeated perusal. It is, too, by virtue 
of its excellence as poetry, a moral as well as 






APPENDIX. 93 

poetic study. Never by hand of heathen artist 
— sculptor or poet — never in marble or in pic- 
tured words, were Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia 
shown in group more graceful, or attitude so 
august as these three Christian Graces. They 
are imaged, not like Atlas stooping with bent 
neck beneath the " starry globe," but erect. 
" The straightened arms upraised, the palms 
aslope," upbearing their burden. They stand, 
not like the nude pagan divinities, but draped 
with Christian modesty, the robes blending like 
" snow embossed in snow." This stationary 
beauty of sculpture changes to other imagery, to 
symbolize the course of the moral sentiments 
which are attendant on education. Hope is the 
| first to faint, and the life of Love is so linked 
i with hers, that if Hope fail, " Love too will sink 
( and die." There is a fine philosophy of the 
affections shown in the lines which tell of the 
subtle process by which Love finds in her own 
life the proof that Hope is not dead; and then 
the peculiar power of the imagination creates 
that second exquisite group — Love, " with soul- 
transfusing eyes," bending over the fainting 
form of Hope and wooing her spirit back again. 
Last of all in this drama of education, you behold 
the third group — as beautiful and more awful — 
where Love and Hope, losing heart, would sink 
beneath the load, but that " the mute sister, 
Patience," stands " with a statue's smile, a 
statue's strength " — and " both supporting does 
the work of both." 

This poem resembles in its philosophical vein 
the productions of some of the early English 
poets, but is superior to them in the better 
proportions of the poetic and philosophical ele- 



94: THE PERIODIC LAW. 

ments — in the mastery which the imagination 
sustains over the metaphysical power. With all 
who know how to recognise and welcome Truth 
embodied in poetic creations, and arrayed in 
poetic garb — with all who look on poetry as a 
study, the poem, we are confident, will find 
favor. Especially may it be taken to heart by 
all who in any way have a duty of education — 
who, having to rule over " wayward childhood," 
are fain to look at the same time upon " the 
light of happy faces." The mother, in whose 
undying instincts towards her child the three 
Graces of education have the truest and most 
beautiful life — the school-mistress, ruling restless 
childhood — the teacher, who governs unruly boy- 
hood, or guides early manhood — all are made to 
feel that Hope often sinks sadly down, and Love 
alone can win her fainting spirit back, and 
lastly, how Patience must needs do the all- 
sustaining work, when her two sorrowing sisters 
are drooping at her side. Not only for those who 
are charged with the education of youth is this 
apologue significant ; it comes home to those, 
whose sacred function it is to lead their fellow- 
beings of every age — the old as well as the 
young — in the paths of righteousness and truth ; 
and they who teach from the pulpit and from the 
altar-side have full cause to feel the need of the 
gracious presence of Love, Hope and Patience. — 
The Register. 



APPENDIX. 95 



Scriptural Coincidences. {Page 43.) 



Prideaux observes, that " when Christ came to 
Nazareth, his own city, he was called as a mem- 
ber of that synagogue to read the Haphterah, 
that is, the section or lesson out of the Prophets 
which was to be read that day, and when he 
stood up and read he sat down and expounded it, 
as was the usage of the Jews in both cases. If 
any one will turn to that lesson he will see the 
force of Christ's comment, 'This day is this 
scripture fulfilled in your ears.' 

"We remember, many years ago, to have been 
quite startled by the lvonderful appropriateness 
of one of the Sunday lessons, to the peculiar cir- 
cumstances of the congregation then assembled 
in a village church. It was the seventh Sunday 
after Trinity, a warm August morning, when an 
attached people met in the Lord's house to listen 
to their dear pastor's parting counsel. A stran- 
ger read the service. The second lesson was the 
20th chapter of Acts. If my readers will refer 
to it, they will not be surprised that the worthy 
clergyman who was then to bid farewell to his 
people w T as dissolved in tears during the reading 
of the lesson, and that all present were greatly 
moved. 

" I have been reminded of this by one paragraph 
in the London Quarterly Review for October, 
1859, in the able article on the ' Geography and 
Biography of the Old Testament.' It is as fol- 
lows : ' Travellers are sometimes fortunate in 
unexpected coincidences. We, ourselves, well 
remember the pleasure with which, on a first 
Sunday in Athens, we heard the seventeenth 



96 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

chapter of the Acts read in the English Church, 
and went after service to read it again in solitude 
on the Areopagus. Professor Stanley tells us, in 
a recently published volume of sermons, that he 
was at the convent of Mount Sinai on a Sunday 
when the fourth chapter of Galatians was the 
epistle for the day ; and he did not fail to preach 
accordingly. A friend, just returned from Pales- 
tine, has described to us a startling moment in 
the early morning, in a ride from Jerusalem by 
Bethlehem to Jaffa, when the sun rose over Gib- 
eon and the moon was full before him over the 
valley of Ajalon. 5 

" We cannot forbear adding to these two or 
three other examples, which will not fail to be 
interesting. When Archbishop Laud was accused 
of high treason, and, for the last time, attended 
evening prayer in the chapel at Lambeth, every 
word of the Psalms appointed for the day (the 
93d and 94th) spoke comfort, while the voice of 
the prophet, in the Old Testament lesson (Isaiah, 
50th chap.) had its own message. St. Peter 
seemed to speak to the afflicted prelate in the 
second lesson, (2 Epis. i.,) and to remind him that 
he must shortly put off his tabernacle." 

" Another of these coincidences occurred in 
the days of the second King James, when the 
seven bishops were sent to the tower in such a 
summary way. Macaulay thus refers to it : ' On 
the evening of the black Friday, as it was called, 
on which they were committed, they reached 
their prison just at the hour of divine service. 
They instantly hastened to the chapel. It chanced 
that in the second lesson were these words : ' In 
all things approving ourselves as the ministers of 
God, in much patience, in afflictions, in distresses, 






APPENDIX. 97 

in stripes, in imprisonment.' All zealous Church- 
men were delighted by this coincidence, and re- 
membered how much comfort a similar coinci- 
dence had given, near forty years before, to 
Charles the First at the time of his death.' — 
[Macazday^s England, vol, ii., p. 338.] 

" The only other instance which we have time 
to give, is that relating to the first prayer in 
Congress. On the Yth of September, 1^774, by 
invitation of that body, the Rev. Mr. Duche, the 
Rector of St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia, offi- 
ciated in Congress Hall, his clerk making the 
responses in the service. The next day, John 
Adams whites an account of this interesting cir- 
cumstance to his wife. The Psalter for the day 
beginning with the 35th Psalm, sent a thrill 
through the whole Assembly. 'You must re- 
member,' says Mr. Adams, ' this w T as the next 
morning after we had heard the rumor of the 
horrible cannonade of Boston. It seemed as if 
Heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on 
that morning? " 

De Tocqueville ox American Democracy. 
{Page 62.) 

De Tocqueville observes : " Whithersoever we 
turn our eyes, we perceive the same revolution 
going on throughout the Christian world. The 
various occurrences of national existence have 
every where turned to the advantage of De- 
mocracy. All men have aided it by their exer- 
tions, both those who have intentionally labored 
in its cause, and those who have served it unwit- 
tingly ; those who have fought for it, and those 
9 



98 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

who have declared themselves its opponents, 
have all been driven along in the same track, 
have all labored to one end; some ignorantly 
and some unwillingly, all have been blind instru- 
ments in the hand of God." 

When this principle has reached its highest 
political development, what then ? It is absorbed 
as the river by the sea in that Kingdom " where 
there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor 
uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor 
free." " The kingdom of God is not, in fact, a 
figurative expression, but most literal ; it is rather 
the earthly kings that are figures and shadows of 
the true." Christ came to raise the degraded 
and reunite all nations, and the cycle of His 
presence will again appear, when the immortality 
of the humblest is vindicated, and commerce is 
as free as the winds that fill its sails. 



Personal Repetitions. {Page 64.) 

Grindon on the law of Rejuvenescence ob- 
serves : " Ideas never die. Out of fashion for 
awhile; lost, perhaps, for generations, they bide 
their time." They revive, as Ovid says, " in nova 
corpora mutataP No fragment of truth is ever 
lost. Immortal as its origin, every particle is 
sure to rise again; its resurrection the result 
of its immortality. All the great " Revivals" 
of the present age partake of this character, and 
result from this mighty law ; let us be careful 
how we ridicule the least of them. Resuscita- 
tion can only happen where there is life ; the 
absurdity may prove to be in ourselves rather 
than in the things. What the many are, such is 



APPENDIX. 99 

the individual. The parallel is exact between 
the soul of man and that of society. " Every 
man," says Sir Thomas Browne, " is not only him- 
self; there have been many Diogeneses and many 
Timons, though but few of the name. Men are 
lived over again ; the world is now as in ages 
past ; there w^as none then, but there has been 
some one since that parallels him, and is as it 
were his revived self." 

Legenda of St. Valentine. {Page 69.) 

In ancient Rome, the feast of Lupercalia, in 
honor of Pan, was observed with much zest. At 
this heathen celebration young men and maidens 
met each other from home. St. Valentine know- 
ing the difficulty of abolishing the festival, de- 
termined to give it a more suitable turn, and he 
so far succeeded that young persons did not meet 
on that day except by the letter carriers, and 
" The Pagan shrine was let for building ground." 

Cannot another improvement be made ? Why 
not appropriate this day to returning 'borrowed 
books? A deep thinker remarks that "many 
duties are not performed because no time is set 
for their performance," and St. Valentine's day 
would require but a slight turn for a very desira- 
ble observance. 

In the Chinese empire, all debts must be paid 
on their New-year day, in default of which the 
store is closed until payment be made. The 
introduction of such an arrangement is not suited 
to our Western civilization, and we must there- 
fore wait the circling progress of Chinese ideas ; 
but in the mean time a beginning might be made 
in the way of proper book-keeping. 



100 THE PERIODIC LAW. 



Simulta^eousxess. {Page 74.) 

" Leaves have their time to fall," — the autumn 
of the year, but is there not a deeper meaning ? 
While passing under an ailanthus tree on a calm 
June day I was surprised to see the leaves fall- 
ing, and concluded that it was from some local 
cause, but I ascertained that this decadence was 
general, as though in different streets an electric 
wire conveyed an order to each tree. Whatever 
the cause, the fact suggests that simultaneous 
law which pervades the vegetable and animal 
world, and especially classes of society, as the 
members of one body. 

Emotions. 

{From the Philadelphia Ledger, May 29, 1867.) 

The Maryland Educational Journal, which is 
the organ of the State Board of Education, and 
is well edited, in a late number calls attention to 
a treatise on " The Periodicity of Mental and 
Moral Emotions, by Rev. Geo. A. Leakin, A. M., 
Trinity Church, Baltimore." The idea is that 
thought revolves, as well as matter. There is 
progress, no doubt, as the great underlying law 
of all things, but it is spiral rather than straight- 
forward. We all know something of the law of 
storms, and by the aid of the electric telegraph 
and the comparison of log books have a very 
good notion now of the direction in which storms 
are circulating and the rate at which they are 
travelling. A terrible gale will come puffing 
and blowing around Cape Hatteras, from the 
northeast, perhaps, but the whole storm will be 



APPENDIX. 101 

creeping up the coast from the southwest ; and 
an experienced sea king, like Sir James Ander- 
son, of the Great Eastern, will, in a few minutes, 
furnish in his own mind a complete map of the 
whole storm, and know how to steer his vessel, 
so as to catch the least of it, or to make it help 
on his purposed voyage, instead of destroying 
his ship. 

We all know something of the law of storms, 
or periodicity, in commercial matters. There 
are flush times when money is abundant, and 
credit safe and universal, and then come storms 
of panic, that seem about to shake and batter the 
firmest fortunes to pieces. Some have thought, 
or tried to think, the wmole matter uncontrollable 
and unaccountable ; others look out for signs and 
prognostics. But there are others who further 
attempt to trace out the tendency to periodicity 
and the law of these commercial storms, and 
even to reduce it to analogy with a similar law 
traced out by Guizot, as belonging to philosophy 
and the operations of the mind generally. We 
all know the eclectic division of philosophies into 
the sensational, ideal, skeptical, mystical, eclectic ; 
and corresponding with these there are in com- 
merce, first, sensational times, when ready money 
answers all things, and gold and silver, without 
paper or credit, governs all things most solidly. 
Then comes the ideal period of credit and in- 
flation, producing, at last, naturally and neces- 
sarily, a skeptical season of panic, in which all 
credits, good and bad, are shaken, so that those 
only which are solid may remain ; by degrees an 
eclectic system of reconstruction sifts out the 
good from the bad, on a solid basis, at first, but 



102 THE PERIODIC LAW. 

to go through the same cycle on a larger scale 
and /with new and more extended sweep. 

There is a law of periodicity in political affairs — 
" a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken in the 
ebb, flows on to fortune" — a time of action and 
reaction in political ideas — a time of war and a 
time of peace. When matters were simplest, and 
governed almost entirely by material considera- 
tions, the changing seasons fixed this greatly, and 
the spring was " the time when kings went forth 
to war," just as now in Africa there is the fixed 
and regular season when the tribes go out on 
their annual slave hunt. As man becomes more 
an intellectual and moral being, immaterial causes 
prevail more over physical, but the laws of man's 
being* are not chano*ecl. 

Even in literature, and especially poetry, this 
law of periodicity is readily traceable. As the 
irregular, passionate, but sensational and sensual 
poetry of Byron was a natural reaction from the 
euphonious smoothness and supposed classic 
regularity of Pope and his contemporaries ; so, 
having run through the cycle in which Coleridge's 
gentler and Wordsworth's tamer lines have had 
their sway, and reduced most of English poetry 
to sad idealistic verse, we have the bold, daring, 
sensual, skeptical, but intense and commanding 
attacks of Swinburne upon what all think most- 
sacred in poetry and life — a writer justly, though 
too hopefully and favorably, treated in the last 
Westm inster Hev iew. 

We are pleased to see that Rev. Mr. Leakin 
has. applied some features of this law to educa- 
tion and the domestic history of each family, the 
fluctuations of colleges, congregations and po- 
litical parties, mental and moral contagions, &c. 



APPENDIX. 103 

" The ascending clew, borne by the wind, is 
condensed upon the mountains, trickles down the 
glad valleys, and returns to deepen and clarify 
the very lake whence it emanated — an invisible 
cycle for ages undetected ; and so the extension 
of periodicity into a new field elevates the com- 
mon laws of life and discovers relationship hith- 
erto unknown." The practical usefulness of this 
sort of study is well illustrated thus : " A worthy 
teacher of large experience stated that in every 
eight years his school became so reduced as to 
threaten its failure, but by steady continuance 
its prosperity as regularly returned. How en- 
couraging this law is to every one depending 
upon numbers for support ! Every business or 
profession is held by two opposing forces, and it 
approximates or recedes from its central sun, 
thus giving the alternations of summer and win- 
ter." If religious congregations were more pa- 
tient and less eager for a change of pastors in 
seasons of natural reaction from over-excitement, 
and more moderate in those excitements, it might 
be better for all. 






INDEX. 



PAGE 

Alexander's Religious Experience, 90 

Ailanthus — Leaves Falling, 100 

Agassiz — Science Mirthful 44 

Aquarium — Scientific, ^ 46 

Audiences — Vertebrate, 63 

Alison — Moral Retribution, 65 

Agricultural Department, 18 

Butler, Bishop — Dying Inquiry, 49 

" Nature's Duplicates, 44 

Baker, Sir S. — Nile Discoveries, 13 

Bacon, Lord, on Agriculture, 18 

Bennett, Dr. Hughes — Correlation, 32 

Burke's Predicted Revolution, 35 

" Commercial Paper, , 68 

Bulwer on Heart Sorrow, 51 

Berkley, Bishop — Benefactor and Poet, 60 

Brown, Dr. — Types of Disease, 29 

Burlingame, Hon. Mr., 60 

Comets, Mental, 30 

Chronometer, Man, the 9 

Chance impossible, 9 

Compensation, Law of, 18 

Cole, Thomas — Artist, 44 

Coincidence, Law of, 42 

Remarkable, 57 

Moral, 62 

Scriptural, . . . c 95 

Day's Labor — Self Regulative, 64 

Debtor's Cycle, 67 

DTsraeli — Historic Repetitions, 61 

Despair, Giant — Curable, 39 

D'Aubigne— World's History, 60 



1 



106 INDEX. 

Diseases, Periodic, 28 

De Tocqueville's Democracy, 96 

Enthusiam, Natural History of, 89 

Esquirol on Idiocy, 31 I 

Education, Failure in, 36 

Extemporaneous Speakers, 49 

Emotions, Periodic, 100 

Fashions, Septennial, 59 

Foster, John, on Religious Failure, 91 

Farrar's Spiritual Laws, . 89 

Franklin on " Cui Bono," 67 

Goethe on Moral Epochs, Q6 

Grindon — Rejuvenescence, 98 

Harvey's Discovery, 34 

Harvest Failures, Periodic, 16 

" " Montgomery Co., Md.,. . .• 16 

" " Illinois and California, 17 

Sea Island Cotton, 18 

East India " 18 

Hospital Patients, 31 

Huntington, Rev. Dr. — Education, 37 

Henry, Professor — Mental Laws, 38, 67 

Holmes, Dr. — Decennial Thoughts, 30 

Heber's Influence, 76 

Hopkins, Bishop, on Order, 76 

Hooker's Dying Thoughts, 78 

Huxley — Spiritual Insight, 88 

Insurance of Harvests — Soldiers' Life, 19 

" " Naval Officers — Accidents, 20 

Moral of, 24 

Inundations and Telegraph, 14 

Irving, Washington, on Composing, 49 

Insanity, Periodic, 31 

" Isolation Remedial, 33 

" Butler od Popular, 35 

Inebriate Asylums, 33 

Jones, Rev. Dr., on Religious Depression, 40 



INDEX. 107 

.Kane's Tables, by Schott, 68 

Latrobe's Rambles in North America, 82 

i Legislative Interference, 68 

). Locomotive Signals, 12 

I Lakes — Periodic Subsidence, 14 

[' L'Etude in Bastile, 73 

! Leonardo D'Vinci, * ... 51 

Locusts — Cicada Septendecim, 82 

I 

j McCosli — Cycles of Science, 69 

, Maban on Scriptural Numbers, 54 

; Mental Sympathy, 73 

Musical Periods, 52 

, Martyn's, H., Spiritual Depression, 38 

1 Metos Golden Numbers, 64 

1 Malpractice, Spiritual, 90 

i Manuscript Restricted, 49 

: Mansell on Conscience, r 41 

i Miller, Hugh — Testimony of Rocks, 8 

Mitchell on Mississippi, 13 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 75 

Newspapers, Law of, 27 

Nilometers, 1.3 

Nature's Sympathy with Man, 43 

Oscillation, Internal, 15 

Obidah — Journey of a Day, 41 

Old Clothes — Metempsychosis, 46 

Prideaux's Connection, 95 

Popular Commotions Foretold, 35 

Poem born, not made, 51 

Painter, the Depraved, 51 

Periodicity not Fatalism, 66 

Peach Harvest, Delaware, 17 

President's Message, 8 

Pitcairn's Moral, 34 

Quetelet on Accidents, ' 22 

" on Human Choice, 66 

Rush, Dr., on Diseases of Mind, 40 



108 INDEX. 

River of Time, 72 

Religion, Natural and Revealed,. 81 

Rain, uniformity of, 21 

Septennial Fallow, Jewish, 18 

Seven — Remarkable Number, 53 

Success — Its Essential, 53 

Spencer, Herbert — Rhythm Universal, 64 

Superintendent, New- York — Abnormal Fires, 21 

Types, Periodic, of Heaven, 78 

Telegraph, Atlantic, 15, 77 

Thought Circulation, 34 

" Indestructible, 71 

Trench on Earthly Types, 26 

Taylor, Isaac, on Providence, 74 

Tuition, Unconscious, 37 

Uneasiness, Cause of, 41 

Vergniaud on French Revolution, 65 

Valentine's Legenda, 99 

West, Benjamin, and Improvisatore, 61 

Williams, Isaac, on Providences, 57 




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